Devil of the Apocalypse
by Gunmare
Summary: Dante Pruflas, a pure-blood devil from the Extra Demon Clan Pruflas, lost his family to a mysterious man in mask, who also stole his family's heirloom, the Seal of Solomon. Seeking revenge, Dante formed a pact with the spirit of the apocalyptic horseman of war and goes to the current devil society to form his own peerage and seek revenge on the man who killed his family. On Hiatus
1. Prologue

_**The Devil of the**_ ** _Apocalypse_**

* * *

 **Before you read this story, I first want to give a shout out to the authors of Devil of the Void Salva 21 Gama, Highschool DxD: Existence Galatic, and Devil Reborn Bamafelix for inspiring me with their stories to make me write one of my own. Note: Unlike the other three stories, this story won't rush straight into the canon, This story is going to take some time introducing the character into the current devil society before we get involve with the canon. Also** **the first chapter will have an actually prologue and the bio all in the first chapter. I don't own Highschool DxD, I just own the plot and the OCs.**

 **Also this story will serve as the prequel of Daredevil, the story where it takes place in the canon.**

* * *

A young thirteen year old boy with spiky, unkempt black hair and sapphire blue eyes laid down in the middle of a burning ballroom, crushed under the debris of the ceiling. He struggled to crawl himself out from the debris, but with the lack of energy and pain he felt through his body, it was completely futile.

"Oh? You're alive?" The black hair teen heard footsteps heading his way. Through the smoke the black hair teen noticed a mysterious figure approaching him casually. The mysterious figure turned to be a feeble looking, short old bald man with broad, hunched shoulders and a crooked back. He had pale white skin tone and menacing red eyes. He was dressed in a white and black coat with a red inner lining, over a white shirt with two thin black belts, as well as white gloves and calf-high black boots.

"So you survived after all. I would have sworn that I annihilated everyone in this estate." The old man chuckled.

"Annihilated?" The black hair boy asked. "W-What is that supposed to mean?"

"You don't remember?" The old man put his hand underneath his chin. "Hmm... maybe the debris must have knock your memories when it hit you." The old man shrugged his shoulders like he didn't care. "Oh well. I have everything I needed from this household."

The mysterious albino old man took out a rusty and golden ring from his pocket. The black hair teen widened his eyes, recognizing the ring in the old man's hand. "T-That ring! That's my mother ring! Why do you have her ring?"

"Oh? You do recognized it." The old man put the rusty and golden ring on his index finger and the ring began to glow a radiant white aura. It spread throughout the old man's body and the black hair boy gasped as he watched the body of the old man changed in front of him. The crooked posture of the old man began to straightened itself. The weak scrawny body soon drastically changed into more of vigor and muscular. The strains of long white hair soon grew out from the old man's bald head.

"No... Way..." The black hair teen couldn't believe what he just witnessed. The albino man in front of him now looked in his early twenties and had a vigor and muscular body that was two and half meters tall. The young man had long dark silver hair that goes down all the way to his thigh. Dante couldn't believed that the handsome young man in front of him used to appear as an ugly, old cripple man before putting on the ring.

"Ah... It took me centuries to locate it, but I finally have it! The Seal of Solomon is in my grasp!" The younger man laughed in delight as he raised the hand that had rusty golden ring on. "It's finally mine!" The white haired man raised his gaze up to the ceilings cracks forming and parts of the ceiling collapsing on the ground. "Oh look at the time. It appears that I won't have time to explain my dastardly plan. Well tell your parents thank you for keeping my ring safe in the afterlife."

"Wait... Don't..." The black hair boy reached his hand toward the mysterious man, who vanished away within the flames. "...Go..." His vision became hazy and he violently coughed. "...away..." His hand fell down the ground as more debris fell on the black hair teen, burying him into the ground.

~DOTA~

The black hair boy woke up to the sight of dark cloudy sky. The atmosphere he was in was hot and humid. The young thirteen year old rolled his head to the side to the dry ground of a barren wasteland. 'Am I in some sort of limbo? No, it can't be. I'm a devil after all. If a devil dies, their spirit is erased from existence. That is what I was told at least.'

The young boy got up from the ground, wondering what to do. He can't find any sign of civilization from his horizon. With the tense heat in the atmosphere, Dante knew by fact he couldn't survive on his own on foot.

"Dante... Pruflas..." The young boy, now known as Dante, heard his name being called above the cloudy sky as sound of thunder echoed in the sky. Dante looked up to see sparks of red lightning throughout the sky. The red lightning began to strike the ground. Many red bolts stroke near where Dante stood. Dante didn't budge a muscle in fear of the red lightning striking him if did move. One of the red bolt of lightning struck right in front of Dante, knocking him out off the ground and crashing back into it violently.

'God... That hurt!' Dante cried on the inside, realizing that he was not dead at all. He tried his best to concealed pain he felt. He held back his tears as he mustered all his strength to get back Dante stood back up, the entire barren wasteland became shrouded by smoke caused by the impact of the red lightning touching the ground.

"Dante... Pruflas..." Dante heard his name called again for the second time more clearer than the ground. This time it was coming from the smoke.

'Who...' Dante stopped his train of thought as the smoke became more visible to see through. Through the smoke, Dante became stupefied as he he noticed large majestic beast with red beaming eyes standing with the smoke.

"A pure blood devil from the Extra Demon Clan Pruflas..." The smoke cleared out, allowing Dante to see a better view of the majestic beast in front of him. The beast he saw was a large horse that stood 30 meters tall. From the tip of its head to its hoof, aside from its mouth, the horse was dressed in fiery red metallic medieval armor with gold accents. There also a trail of fire that came from the back of the head of the horse to all the way to the horse's back and ends at the end of its tail.

"Child of Belllincione Pruflas and Bella Leonard-Pruflas." The horse spoke, breathing out ruby flames from its nostrils. "Though born untalented, weak, and low average of demonic power of high class devil... Your parents raise you with love and affection. You were very fortunate child indeed. Other pure-blood households frown upon devils the like of you. Even if they were their own children."

What the medieval armored horse said was true. There have been cases where multiple households who value demonic power the most. A perfect example is the Bael household. They are very extremely prideful, looking down on other Devils and prefer to stick to the old tradition where demonic power determines everything, going as far as discriminating their own family members should they not possess any demonic powers. Dante has heard that the first born son of the current leader of the household didn't posses any demonic energy at all and not inheriting his clan's trademark, the power of destruction. If Dante remembered correctly, the first born son is currently shunned from his clan and living on the countryside with his mother doing who knows what.

"You lived a happy life up till now." The horse continued. "But that all came to an end when he showed up."

'He?' Then it hit Dante. The young thirteen year old boy experienced a terrible headache in his head. The pain he experience felt like a lightning bolt just struck straight into his brain. Memories of the mysterious masked man, his mother's ring, and his family castle all surged into his mind. 'That's right! That man! He...' Dante's eyes began to get watery as Dante himself began to realized what just happened back at his castle '... killed my parents!'

"Ah... So you do remember after all."The horse said, sounding a pleased with Dante's devastated reaction.

Dante wiped his tears away and looked back up at the horse, enraged. "Is true? Did that man really killed my parents!?"

"Yes, your parents are truly dead." The horse slowly nodded. "It all happened in an instant. You probably don't remember it because it all happened in a blink of a second."

"And me? What about me? Shouldn't I be dead too?" Dante asked frustratingly.

"Yes, you should have dead by the debris that caught you, but I intervened." The horse confessed. "Right now the fate of your life in dangling within the my hoofs."

'My fate lies in the hoofs of this horse? What is he talking about?' Dante wondered.

"W-Who exactly are you?"

"Ah, that's right." The horse said, speaking so casual as if it didn't really matter. "Forgive me that I haven't introduced myself, but that's only because I myself don't official have a name of myself, however I was given a title that many known me as the Apocalyptic Horseman of War, of the four Horsemen of Apocalypse written in the holy Bible."

"Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"Dante exclaimed "You mean the ones that appeared in Revelation of the New Testament?"

"Oh, so you have heard of us," The red horse known as War said delightfully. "Good, then it's I'll go straight to the point. I'm require you assistance, Dante Pruflas."

'Assistance?' Dante wondered. "Why would you need my assistance?"

"Oh? You don't want to avenged your parent's death?" War asked, rhetorically.

"Is this supposed to be funny to you?" Dante snarled. "My parents are dead! And they're dead just because some man wanted some stupid ring!"

"That stupid ring isn't something you should take so lightly." War said with his tone changing form a lighter one to a dark one. "That ring posses power you wouldn't imagine. You saw what that ring did to that man. It could much more than what you saw. It's something that shouldn't fall in the wrong hands."

War was correct. Dante seen what the Seal of Solomon did to that man who killed his parents. The ring made his body young and vigor. If what War was true, the ring could do more than making change of appearance.

"So why me? What makes qualified to be assistance to you?"

"I... no longer possess physical form."War confessed, speaking a bit hesitant to speak the truth. "My brethren and I our bodies during the events of Revelation, where the things didn't go as it should have been written. I'm nothing more than a spirit of massive amount of energy, waiting for someone to use it. I require a receptacle to wield my power and you seemed the perfect host to wield my power. Also..."

"Also...?" Dante raised a brow.

"I can tell you're willing to do anything to get revenge on the man who stole your precious family from you." War remarked. "I can see it in your eyes. I can tell you'll stop at nothing to get your revenge on them, regardless if you have the power or not. So..." Wind began to gathered around War, enveloping him into a huge tornado. The winds quickly died out and the tornado quickly vanished into thin air. When the tornado vanished, War was already gone, and where he stood was a float short sword with a red glowing gem straight in the center of the hilt. The red gem glowed even bright as the voice of War spoke from the sword. "How about it kid? I'll lend you my power and you do whatever you want as long as you live if you promise that your primary purpose is to one day recover the Seal of Solomon at all cost."

Dante slowly walked up to sword. He admired the beautiful as he thought of the offer War just given him. War is willing to give him his power for all entirety and he has to do is take reclaim his mother's ring and take revenge on the man who costed his family. Dante couldn't think anything wrong with it.

"Alright," Dante said, grabbing the handle of the sword. "Let's this be the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

The instant Dante finished his sentence, the red gem on the sword began to emit a powerful red light, enveloping Dante and everything around him.

* * *

 **In demonology, and according to Johann Weyer and his Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Pruflas is a Great Prince and Duke of Hell that has twenty-six legions of demons under his command. He causes men to commit quarrels, discord, and falsehood, and should be never admitted into any place, but if conjured, he gives truthful, generous answers to the conjurer's questions. He is depicted as a flame outside the Tower of Babel, where he uses to reside, and sometimes his head is seen as that of a hawk.**

 **Now let me explained why I'm writing this story in the first place. Well I did got inspired by "Highschool DxD Existence" and "Devil of the Void" into writing this, but I don't want to go into the route where basically the a simply "rewrite" of the Light Novel, which majority of DxD Fan Fic stories are doing these days, including me (A Second Chance & A New Opportunity) by either making Issei either OP, OOC, him being replaced by OCs and such, which was in fact tiring for someone like myself (It's the reason why I wrote A Fragile Heart, which I recommend reading), to bring out some originality and such in the series and not a basic "Reboot" in the series.**

 **What do you suspect in the series? Well for one, for the first half of this story will focus on Dante Pruflas, a devil from the Extra Demon Clan, adjusting his new life style in the Devil Society, viewing how Extra Demons are treated to the 72 Pillars and what is the status quo/relationship between the Extra Demon Clan and the 72 Pillars. He focused on other supporting characters that appeared on "The Birth of the Breast Emperor Dragon" like Sairaorg, Diodora, Seekvaira Agares, and other devils that are part of the 72 Pillars. I also want to focus on a different setting from Japan for a while and go into more depth into other mythologies like Greek, Celtic, and explore more of Japanese deities like Izanagi and Amaterasu. We'll also explore some biblical stuff like the Four Horsemen and Seal of Solomon, which will play a huge role in the series.**

 **Are we going to see Issei, Rias, and the others? Of course. I don't want to reveal anything, but Rias and her peerage prior till Issei's reincarnation will play active, yet short, role in the series and continue off after the end of the prologue of the series. After the first ten to fifteen (I want to recruit at least half of the members of his peerage within the first arc) before Dante enters the canon of the series, which will lead to volume 02 and there are parts where Dante will go on and off on parts of the canon.**

 **Now it's time for the Profile: (Note: Parts of this profile will update each chapter and new proflies will be added to new characters who join the Peerage or part of the supporting cast.) Also this profile will be added to my forum, which you can find on my profile. Also the harem won't be reveal till after the the first arc.**

 **Name: Dante Pruflas**

 **Nickname: Daredevil, Horseman of War**

 **Race: Pure-Blood Devil**

 **Household: Pruflas (Father)/Leonard (Mother)**

 **Age: 13 (Current)**

 **Gender: Male**

 **Occupation: King, High-Class Devil**

 **Family:**

 **Bellincione Pruflas (Father) (Deceased)**

 **Bella Leonard (Mother) (Deceased)**

 **Affiliation: 72 Pillars, Horsemen of the Apocalypse**

 **Eyes: sapphire blue**

 **Hair Color: Black**

 **Appearance: Dante has the appearance of a young thirteen year old bishounen with dark jet-black hair and dark sapphire blue eyes. He's slightly pale due to being born somewhat frail. A better appearance is a younger Noctis Lucis Caelum.**

 **Personality: Prior to the attack of mysterious man, Dante was a self-conscious and shy child due to lack of demonic energy compare to those of a high-class. He rarely speak to people unless its his parents, but after the death of his parents, Dante is currently felt with rage and desire vengeance on the man who his parent's life and is willing to do almost anything to get stronger to the point to use others for his personal gain. Due to this, Dante currently believes to himself that he isn't a "Good Person" who only obsession in his life is to seek revenge. Despite this dark side of Dante, Dante has a good heart and cares deeply for his comrade, for knowing that the key to obtaining his revenge is the "bond of others" and he can't do anything on his own.**

 **Like: His parents, developed women, coffee, sweets and people with potential.**

 **Dislikes: Arrogance, The man who attacked his family, feeling powerless, spicy food, and undeveloped women.**

 **Background: Both Dante's parents both come from two different Extra Demon Clans of Pruflas (Father) and Leonard (Mother), who both left their households in interest of the Rating Game, where the two meet in their first match and feel in love with one another and got married. Centuries later, Dante was born, possessing both family traits, but with low demonic energy. Despite this setback, Dante's parent raised him with love and affection through his childhood till he turned thirteen, where the mysterious man appeared and killed Dante's parents and stole his mother's ring, the seal of Solomon. On verge on death himself, Dante is soon by the Apocalyptic Horseman of War, who offered Dante power in return he'll retrieve the ring back at all cost, which Dante agrees to.**

 **Skill & Abilities: Though born with both traits of his parent's respective household, Dante demonic energy is below average.**

 **Pruflas's trait: N/A (For Now. Reason why I won't reveal it is for dramatic effect and want to leave you guessing. More skills will be added and updated as the story goes on and on the profile on my forum.)**

 **Leonard's trait: N/A ( For Now)**

 **Weaponry: Sword of War: A mysterious and magical sword that possess the spirit of Apocalyptic Horseman of War. The power and abilities of the sword is still unknown as of now. The appearance of the sword is the Incursio from Akame ga Kill.**

 **Peerage: (Note: The Identity of the peerage members only be reveal on the chapter they are obtained and further down the story. For example if the chapter six of the series is where he reincarnated a servant, that said servant the role of that peerage will be reveal at the end of the story.)**

 **King: Dante Pruflas**

 **Queen: N/A**

 **Bishop: N/A**

 **Bishop: N/A**

 **Knight: N/A**

 **Knight: N/A**

 **Rook: N/A**

 **Rook: N/A**

 **Pawns: N/A**


	2. A Family Funeral

**Author's Note: Well first off I'm glad how well the first chapter went very well. I hope to get more reviews, followers, and favorite in this chapter. I don't own DxD or anything related. Please review, follow, and favorite at the end.**

* * *

 _ **Devil Society Arc:**_

 _ **Chapter 01: Family Funeral**_

"Mama! Papa!" The field of darkness, Dante saw a glimpse of the back of man with black hair and a woman with long brown hair. Dante rushed over towards his parents, trying to catch up to them. "Mama! Papa!"

Both of them turned around after they heard their names being called. As they were half way to turning towards their only son, a flash of light appeared, blinding Dante for a moment. When Dante recovered his sight, his parents were on the floor, laying on the puddle of their own blood.

 _ **"**_ _ **Hehehehe..."**_ The sound of a creepy echoed in the darkness. _**"Hehehahahahaha!"**_ The laughter got louder and creepier by the second. _**"Hahahahahahahaha!"**_ Dante turned towards the direction of the laughter and saw him. The silver hair man wearing the black mask. He put his hand that had Dante's mother ring on out and created a magic circle on his palm. _**"Die!"**_

"Guaahhhhhhhh!" Dante screamed. Dante's opened his eye, realizing that he just woke up from a terrible nightmare. The thirteen year old boy woke up from his bed with his body sweating, he's taking in heavy breaths and his heart beating in a rapid pace.

* _Beep, Beep*_

"Huh?" Dante slowly turned his head to direction of the cardiac monitor beeping for beat his heart makes. He noticed an IV drop, which a cord is connected to him and the bag. He then looked around the unfamiliar room, realizing that he was no longer at his home. He then looked down at himself to see himself dressed in a green hospital gown.

 _'_ _This place... Am I in a hospital?'_ Dante thought to himself tiredly as he tried to get off from the bed.

A nurse walked into the room, humming peacefully with a clipboard in her hands. When she noticed that Dante was wide awake in the room, she let go of the clipboard in her hands and in panic, she ran out screaming like her life depended on it.

"Doctor! Someone get the doctor! The patient! The patient is awake! " The nurse cried out. He's Dante cocked his head in confusion as he heard the nurse screaming how Dante's awake and in one peace.

"It can't be! The lad shouldn't have woken up so soon!" A male voice screamed through the hallway. A doctor rushed into Dante's room. He became petrified the moment he saw Dante looking completely fine, though his eyes look haggard and baggy. "N-No way!" The doctor also rushed out the room, screaming: "Contact the authorities at once! The boy is awake and well!"

"What's going on?" Dante murmured to himself, trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

Eventually the doctor that ran out from the room returned to give Dante a full medical exam. From what the doctor just told him, Dante came to the hospital critically wounded. All of his bones in his body were shattered, his head was concussed and bruised, and he was losing a lot of blood. The moment the paramedics dropped Dante in a hospital room, ready to heal him with a Phenex Tear, but his wounds were already gone. His bones were fixed, the bruises are healed, the wounds that shed a lot of blood were closed and the blood he lost was repleted. At first they didn't know how didn't understood how child with low demonic energy was able to heal his own body without the Phenex Tears. Then the problem regarding how Dante regain his conscious so quickly. According to what the doctor has informed him, Dante shouldn't have awakened so soon. He was just brought less than an hour ago.

"Excuse me! Coming through!" A young attractive man with long silvery hair, dressed in a full uniformed rushed into the room Dante is resting after his examination. "Dante!" He let out a great sigh of relief and rushed over towards the thirteen year old boy and wrapped him around his arms. "Thank goodness you're alive!"

"Uncle Rudiger!" The man Dante referred to wasn't his actually uncle, but the only bishop that was part of his father's peerage. His name was Rudiger Rosenkreutz, a former human and magician from the Magician Association, "Rosenkreutzer". Rudiger knew Dante's father during his time as a magician when he started his pact with him when they were young. When Rudiger aged and was on the verge of death, Dante's father decided to reincarnated Rudiger into his peerage for him to live longer and aided him to climb through the ranks and help him become the Ultimate Class Devil and 7th ranked champion of the Rating games as he is today.

"Uncle... Their dead... My parent's there dead!" Dante said, wrapping his arms around Rudiger and burying his face into his chest.

"I know, Dante. I know. But's everything is going to be alright now son." Rudiger assured him. "I'm here now. I'm going to take care of you for now on."

 _*Knock Knock*_

Both Dante and Rudiger let go of one another and turned back towards the door, where they noticed a young man with long red hair entering the hallway with a silver hair woman dressed in a french maid outfit following him from behind.

"Pardon my intrusions," The redhead man apologized, realizing that Dante and Rudiger were having a moment.

"W-Wait! Y-You're-" Rudiger quickly recognized the redhead man and quickly kneel on one knee. "Greeting my majesty. What brings the great Satan Lucifer here?"

 _'Lucifer?'_ Dante didn't recognized the the red-hair at first, mostly because he still felt weary, but soon recognized the man in front of him soon after Rudiger called him "Lucifer". _'Wait, that man... He's Sirzechs Lucifer!"_

Sirzechs Lucifer. He's known as one of the four great Satans that rule the underworld. Though born from the Gremory household, Sirzechs obtained the name "Lucifer" for being a powerful devil within his own class and leading the Anti-Satan Faction against the old Satan Faction during the civil war.

 _'Why is he here?'_ Dante wondered.

"At ease sir Rudiger." Sirzechs said, speaking in a laid-back and friendly tone. He turned his gaze over to Dante, who's unsure either or not to follow Rudiger's example and show respect to Sirzechs. "You must be Dante."

Dante nodded his head, too speechless to say anything to the one of the rulers of the underworld.

"I give you my condolences." Sirzechs said, patting Dante on the shoulder. "It's must have been tough for you." Again Dante nodded his head in response, too tense speak up to Sirzechs. Sirzechs took in a big breath and exhaled. "I can't promise you anything, but I'll do the best as I can do to find the man responsible for your parent's death."

Dante was touched by Sirzechs's word. He could believe that Sirzechs was going to keep his promise and try his best to search for the man in the mask.

Sirzechs turned towards Rudiger. "If it's alright, may I speak with you in pri-"

"He wore a mask."

"Eh?" Sirzechs turned back to Dante, who interrupted him.

"The man who murdered my parents wore a black mask." Dante clarified.

"Oh? Is there anything else you want to share with me?" Sirzechs asked.

Dante nodded. "Of course. Where do you want me to begin?"

Rudiger, Sirzechs, and his maid all gathered towards Dante's bed, listen attentively to Dante's story regarding the man in the mask and his experience with him. He talked about how Dante woke up within the debris of the ceiling of his home and seeing the man walked through hallway in his elderly appearance and later into his young appearance as soon he put on the Seal of Solomon.

"Wait, the man in the masked turned young just by putting on your mother's ring?" Sirzechs asked.

"Yes," Dante assured him. "It was some sort of magic ring. He called the Seal of Solomon."

"Seal of Solomon!?" Everyone gasped. The moment everyone heard the name of the ring, the atmosphere turn cold and grim. Everyone in the room turned pale as if they felt a terrible foreboding that can't be avoided. Just by looking how daunting the three adults were, the ring was a bigger deal than Dante thought.

"Lord Sirzechs?" Dante called out the Satan's name while tugging onto his sleeve.

"Ah... Sorry." Sirzechs apologized, snapping out of his train of thought. "Forgive me for zoning out for a moment there. So what happened after that?"

"Well after that the man in the mask decided to leave." Dante explained. "He realized that the castle was going to collapsed and decided to flee. On his way out, he told me that he didn't have time to reveal his plans and pass a message to my parents to thank them for keeping the ring. And that's it, I guess."

"You guess?" Sizechs raised a brow out of curiosity. "Did something happened after that."

"I... I don't know." Dante said, unsure if something did happened after the man in the mask left. He felt something did happened after he left, but Dante couldn't remember. "I can't remember anything beyond that."

"Well I think we have enough information for one day." Sirzechs said, patting Dante on the head. "The information you provided me is more useful than you realized. Thank you.

"Ah... your welcome." Dante's face turned seven different shades from red after receiving the compliments of a Satan in front of him.

"Well then we must be off." Sirzechs said as he and his maid head out the door.

"Excuse me, Lord Sirzechs, didn't you want to speak with me?" Rudiger asked, causing Sirzechs to stop at the doorway.

"Ah that's right." Sirzechs said, turning back to Rudiger. "It's regarding the custody of Dante. If you will, can we discuss in private in another room?"

"Of course," Rugider obliged with a small bow. He turned toward Dante. "I'll be right back Dante. This won't take long."

"Okay," Dante nodded, laying his back to the mattress. He grabbed his planet and wrapped it around himself. "I'm feeling exhausted anyways. Take your time with speaking with Satan Lucifer Uncle. If you need me, you know where I be." Dante closed his eyes, allowing his sleep to take the best of him and putting him to sleep.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

Dante entered a dream where he stood in a barren wasteland filled with swords buried to the ground, making into more of some sort of graveyard. A sense of nostalgia stroke Dante, as if he was once been there before.

"Have there always been swords buried here?" Dante asked to himself aloud, noticing all the different shape and sizes all the swords within the wasteland. He decided to picked up one of the swords up to examine, but before he could even touch the handle of one of them, the roaring sound of lightning echoed the sky. Dante raised his head up to see bolts of red lighting scouring the gray clouded sky.

 _ **"Oh you've returned."**_ A voice from above said. _**"Though it seems you lost your memories of being here."**_

 _'That voice. I heard that voice before. Where in the world did I hear it? Was it here?'_ Dante wondered.

 _ **"Well maybe when the time comes, you'll remember this place. You'll remember me. You'll remember the promise we made. You'll the remember it all."**_ The voice said as a huge fiery red bolt of lightning strike the ground, enveloping everything into a red light, including Dante.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

Dante woke up again the hospital room again feeling completely robust and refreshed. The fatigue and pain he felt in his body before was gone. For the first time in his life, Dante felt completely alive and energize.

"Morning Dante." Dante looked at the door of the room, where Rudiger entered the room with a brown paper bag in his hands."You looked... well rested." The reincarnated devil looked dazed at the perfect condition of his former master's children. "You're too fine! How can this be?"

"I don't know." Dante shrugged, unsure how he's perfectly fine as well. The first thing he came to his mind was the mysterious voice and the red lightning. Could it be possible that voice had something to do with his rapid recovery? "Can we get out of here already? I hate being cooped up here."

"Sure," Rudiger agreed, opening the paper bag and pulling out a hamburger that is completely wrapped by thin paper. "I'll get a doctor to check your conditions on you one last time, and hopefully you can get discharge after that. But before I do that, I need to speak to you about something."

"What is it?" Dante asked as he was handed the hamburger that his uncle pulled out from the bag.

"It's regarding your custody." Rudiger replied, taking out another hamburger from the bag and taking a seat next to Dante. "Remember when Sirzechs came by earlier? He wanted to discuss to me regarding who is going to take your custody."

Dante didn't like where this was going.

"Since both your parents are Extra-Demon pure-blood devils that cut off ties from their clans, you can't exactly go live with with neither of your parent's realitves." Rudiger continued, unwrapping the cover on his hamburger before taking a bite out of it. "So I spoke to Lucifer regarding custody of you and we made up multiple alternatives of where you're going to stay for now on."

 _'Alternative? This isn't going to be good.'_ Dante thought, not enjoying where this was going.

"Well basically you have three options." Rudiger began, raising his pointer finger up in the air. "The first option is you can be under the custody of a pure-blood clan from the remaining 72 pillars." Rudiger took a pause as he raised his middle finger to make a v-shape peace sign. "Option two is that you can be marry off to any of to any other household from the 72 pillars."

Though the first two options sounded similar, they were completely different at the same time, which Dante well aware of. The difference between the two alternatives were quite simple. The first option gives Dante to live under any household of the remaining 72 Pillars, though knowing how most pure-blood nobles treat outsiders like himself, he can tell that he'll be seen as nuisance to be watch over and be discriminated by the other members of the clan since he's not one of them. If Dante was married off to a different household on the other hand, the hostility will be less serve since he's only job is help to produce children with his future wife and if he married a heiress, he has more control other members of the clan when his wife takes control of their clan.

But if he take any of the other two options Dante has to give up something important. His surname. This is the case with most devils who are married off to a different class. If he's married off to a different clan or going to join a different class, Dante has to give up his last name "Pruflas" and adopt the name of his new family. That's something Dante doesn't want to abandoned. If Dante gave up his name, it's also means he's abandoning everything his family stand for in favor of another, which Dante does not want to do.

"And here comes Option three. You can stay with anyone with your parent's peerage members who's already a high-class devil." Rudiger concluded, much to Dante's surprised. "What? Did you think I was going to allow those snotty nobles to shipped off to some other family since you have any other relative from your clan to watch over you?"

Dante shook his head to the side as he felt overwhelmed of relief from what his father's former servant just said. "Thank you, Uncle. You made me the happiest boy in the world."

 _ **~DOTA~**_

A week has past. Dante was discharged from the hospital after Rudiger convinced the hospital that Dante was perfect fine and doesn't need to be evaluated in multiple experiments. As soon he released, Dante learned that the invistagation found his parent's corpses and a funeral was held later that week , where it was organized by Rudiger. Many devils from different households showed up to paid up respect for Dante and his parents. Famous nobles like the Rating Game Champion Diehauser Belial and even the four great Satans showed up.

During the service, many nobles came up to Dante, offering him to be part of their clan via marriage to their daughters. Some were lords of their household who offered their daughters, who were also heiresses to their throne, which Dante was temped but blatantly refused. The nobles kept pestering Dante to the point that Rudiger and even some of the Satans have to intervened and put it to a stop.

The ceremony continued smoothly without any unnecessary interruption and disturbance. During the ceremony Rudiger made a speech regarding Dante's parents regarding how he meet them and how much they mean to him. Other members of both his parents' peerage showed up and talked about how they meet with their deceased masters and their times together in the Rating Games. Nobles who knew Dante's parents spoke up themselves regarding their personal relationships with them. Dante was offered to make speech himself, but he refused to do so. He didn't know what to say if went up the stage. Ever time he thinks about his parents, he think of the man responsible for killing them.

After the speeches were all done, the members of both his parents peerages carried their respective master's sarcophagus towards the graveyard and buried them right next to each other. Dante watched lifelessly as his parent's peerage began to bury his parents sarcophagus with dirt.

 _"How pitiful. To think that the almighty the Bellincione of the Pruflas Clan and Bella of the Leonard died like this. May Extra Demon Clans are more fragile than we imagine."_

 _"Yeah its more pitiful than their defective child they love. What were they thinking of keeping that child if he posses so little demonic energy? Do you really think that child has what it takes to live up to his parent's legacy?"_

 _"Unbelievable. Do this child really thinks he can live up to his parents' potential? He barely has demonic energy as it is. Do anybody really think he has the chance to make it on his on like that?' It's better off if he just gets married off to avoid the humiliation he will face when goes to the big leagues. There is no way a defected Extra Demon can stand a chance against those of the 72 pillars."_

 _"That's right. Only those from 72 Pillars are worthy to become champion in the Rating Games. There no way we would accept a defected Extra Demon to become our champion in the games."_

Dante gritted his teeth as he heard the voices of the nobles talking behind his back. He was fully aware how much these nobles detested his family background very much. To them it was a day of celebration. Now that his father and mother is dead, the nobles who still compete in the Rating Games have less competition to worry about and now assume they have a chance of becoming champions. The thought of those nobles believing they were better than his parents sicken Dante. They was no way that those nobles were better than Dante's parent, especially since his father was fifth ranked champion of the games.

Even though those nobles were acting condescending and ignorant, they were right about one thing: Dante's lack in demonic energy. There was no way Dante could avenge his parents and make those nobles take back what they sad about his parents if he doesn't have the strength to back it up. He fully aware that if he wants the strength to avenge his parents and get back at those who ridicule his family, Dante has no choice but to train himself to the fullest. He knew if he done nothing when he goes into adult hood, nothing will change for him. His strength won't magically increase as he grew older. If he wanted to live up to his parent's legacy he's only option was to get stronger through hard training and exercises.

"Excuse me."

"Huh?" Dante snapped out of this train of thought after he heard the voice of a young girl next to him. He awed the beauty of the girl when he turned around to see her. The young girl next to him was the same age as Dante with long flowing red hair and shining light blue eyes. She wore a black dressed and carried a bouquet of roses in her hands.

"You must be Dante Pruflas right?" the redhead girl said, causing Dante's face to slightly blushed. Too nervous to even speak back, Dante nodded back in response. "Here, theses are for you." The redhead girl passed the bouquet of roses in her hand to Dante, much to his surprise and give a quick bow. "I give you my condolence, sir Dante. I was a big fan of your father during his time in the Rating Games. It because of him I was inspired to compete in the Rating Games myself."

Dante felt touched by the girl's words. He couldn't believe a noble girl from the 72 Pillars had high admiration for an Extra Demon like his father.

"Ah t-thank you for your kinds words." Dante stuttered as he scratched the back of his head.

The redhead girl smiled as she noticed that Dante wasn't depressed as before. She let out a small giggle, enjoying the fact that Dante was acting a bit shy around her. "You're welcome." The redhead girl did another small bow before heading off back to her parents.

"Who was she?" Dante murmured to himself as he watched the redhead girl walked back to her parents.

"Her name is Rias Gremory." A new voice answered from behind. Dante looked back and saw a young boy around his age with short messy black hair and purple eyes. Despite being his the same age group, the young boy from behind was taller than Dante and had a strong muscular build body. "She's the daughter of the current lord of the Gremory Clan and the younger sister of the current Satan Lucifer."

 _'Lucifer!?'_ Now that the boy mentioned it, the redhead girl named Rias did looked a lot like Sirzechs Lucifer with her long crimson red hair and the light blue eyes. But another thing caught Dante's attention.

"You said she was the daughter of the current lord of her household. Does that mean she's the heiress to take after her clan?" Dante asked.

"Of course." The black hair boy replied with a nod.

"Oh." Dante's emotions and expression drastically changed after hearing that. The crush like feelings he developed for the redhead girl disappeared in an instant as his expression bitter and indifferent.

"Hmm? What's wrong? You looked turned off when you heard she was the heiress of the Gremory Clan." The black hair boy remarked.

Dante sighed. "Well as much I want to have a girl like her to become my future bride, I can clearly tell that she has no interest of leaving her position of becoming the next leader of her household to become the wife of good for nothing man like myself, and I rather stay single for the rest of my life rather than giving up my surname to become some trophy husband for some snotty wife."

The black hair boy chuckled. "You're very interesting indeed Dante. Let me asked you a question. What you would say if someone noble was interested in reincarnating you into their peerage? Would you accept or will you refuse."

"I'll definitely refused." Dante answered without a second thought.

"Oh why?" The black hair boy asked.

"Well first off that noble must be nuts if he wants a weakling like myself to join their peerage." Dante explained. "And secondly I did join some noble's peerage, it would basically depriving what's left of the Pruflas clan within the current society. If do ended up in someone's peerage, I ended up losing my status as "High-Class" devil and become part of master's clan instead. Everything I become and what I have will part of my master's clan and not my own. Even if I regain my status as "High-Class" devil or even become an "Ultimate-Class" Devil, I'll still be seen as the devil that served under clan that belongs to my master."

"That's well said Dante." The black hair boy said, pleased with Dante's answer. "It's true. If you ended recruited into someone's peerage, you'll only been seen as a devil of that master's family regardless if you become a high class or an ultimate class devil. For reincarnated devils it nothing of no importance but if a pure blood like our selves are part of that peerage, it's completely a different case. So answer me this Dante. What are you going to do now?"

"..." Dante was taken back by that question. He knew what he wanted do, but wasn't sure if he wanted to share some private information to some stranger he just met. Or maybe it was because he was scared on how the strange boy was going to react if he did share the plan.

"It seems like you're not ready to share that type of information with me." The black hair boy noted by seeing Dante's quiet response. "Well that's alright. I get that you not going to tell everything to a stranger you just met. I'll take my leave now. I hope to see you again."

The black hair boy turned around, heading off back to where he came. As he walked away, Dante quickly realized something.

"Hey wait!" Dante shouted as he caught up to the mysterious black hair boy. "You didn't even given me your name yet."

"Oh that's right." The black hair boy said casually like it was nothing special. "The name is Sairaorg Bael. I'm the next heir of the Bael Clan. It's an honor to meet you Dante Pruflas." After that the black hair boy named Sairaorg left after annoucing his full name.

 _'Bael!?'_ That definitely left Dante shocked. He couldn't believe that he spoke to not only member to the most prideful and arrogant family of the 72 Pillars, but he spoke to none other than the heir himself. For someone to be heir of a vain clan like Baels, Sairaorg was very courteous and honorable man, much to Dante's surprise. But only his surname caught Dante's attention, so did his first name. _'Wait a minute, did he just called himself Sairaorg? Where did I hear that name before?'_

"Ah there you were Dante!" Rudiger said, walking his way to his ward. "I've looking for you."

"Oh sorry Uncle." Dante apologized, though his tone sounded a bit distracted. "Hey uncle, do you per chance know the name "Sairaorg Bael" per chance?"

"Sairaorg Bael? You mean the first born child of the current lord Bael that didn't inherit the Power of Destruction?" Rudiger clarified.

"What do you mean? Isn't Sairaorg Bael the current heir of the Bael Clan?" Dante asked, unsure what his uncle is talking about. He was fully aware that the first born son of the current head of the Bael Clan didn't inherit the Power of Destruction and shunned from the clan, leaving the position of heir to his younger brother, who did inherit the Power of Destruction. There could be no way that the first born son was able to claim the title of heir if he didn't posses his clan's signature trait.

"Oh haven't you heard? The first born son of the current head was able to take his position as heir of the Bael household after beating his younger brother in a one on one match." Rudiger informed him.

"Wait he did? How? I though that first born didn't posses any demonic energy at all?" Dante asked, still lost with what Rudiger was saying.

"You're right he didn't. But he was able to defeat his power with nothing more than his body." Rudiger explained. "I heard that b y trained his body to the fullest and fought against his brother with nothing more than his bare hands."

 _'He fought with nothing more than his own physical prowess?'_ Hearing that caused Dante to realized two things about Sairaorg. The first was that Dante just spoke with the defective child everyone ridicule and discriminated against. And the second thing was that Sairaorg was once in Dante's position in regard of being powerless.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

With the services ending, everyone who attended the funeral left home except for Dante and Rudiger, who were standing right in front of the graves of his Dante's parents. They both stood their in silence for the last hour. Rudiger watched passively at Dante, who was in deep thought the whole time. Feeling that they overstayed their welcome, he decided to it was time to go.

"Dante." Rudiger gently placed a hand over his ward's shoulder as he whispered his name. "It's time to go now. We should be heading back now."

"Hey uncle." Dante said without taking his eyes away from his parent's tombstone. "Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" Rudiger asked.

"Can you help me to get stronger? I need to get strong enough if I'm going to make that man in the mask pay for taking my parent's life."

* * *

 **Author's Note: Hello everyone! Please tell me your opinion on the first chapter of the Devil Society Arc. I originally did want to cut it off at the hospital scene, but decided to add the funeral to save time for the next chapter and add characters like Sairaorg and Rias in the series. And yes if you were curious Dante did have a crush on Rias, but quickly got over her since he knew that he had no chance of having her if she was going to become the head of the Gremory Clan and Dante himself didn't want to become part of the Gremory Clan since he knew he had to give up his surname as well. To me I believe that if a pure-bloods got married off one of the spouses have to take the surname of the other and cut off their ties of their original household. A good example is Venelana Gremory the mother of Rias and Sirzechs. She was born from the House of Bael but was later married off to the Gremory, which she took her husband's name and was cut off from her original household, which her younger brother, the current lord of the Bael Clan, stated when she got tried to take Sairaorg under her custody. Another case scenario was when the Vapula Clan tried to take custody of Misla and Sairaorg, the Bael clan refused to allow Sairaorg to leave, who had Vapula blood in him, but had his father's surname as such.**

 **The only exception about some devils keeping their surname is Grayifa, but that is only because Sirzechs was given the name "Lucifer" and since her clan served the original Lucifer, its only safe to assume it had to do with honoring the traditions of the old ways or something like that.**

 **For the remaining part of the first arc, we'll continue to see Rias, but after that she's gone till we get to the canon. But don't worry, we'll see a lot of Sairaorg Bael in the story within the first few arcs of the series. Also are you surprise that I made Rudiger Rosenkreutz, the 7th ranked champion of the Rating Games the servant of Dante's father. Rudiger will play a huge role, along with Sairarg, during the series before we reach the canon.**

 **Now for the Preview:**

 **Dante now follows the path of being an avenger the first thing he wants to do is recruit members into his peerage to help combat against the man in the mask, but with no idea where to begin, its up to his uncle Rudiger to aid him by helping him look the prefect queen that will not only be Dante's strongest and trusted ally, but possibly be the one to help Dante in his relieve him from the pain he had within.**

 **Next time in Devil of the Apocalypse: The Bandage Girl Part 01**


	3. Bandage Girl Pt 01

_**Hey guys! It's been a long time since I last updated, but I've been busy and all, but I'll reveal that to you at the end of the chapter why I have been very busy. So please enjoy and review, follow, favorite, and please give some creative criticism.**_

* * *

 ** _Chapter 02: The Bandage Girl Part 01_**

* * *

Dante looked at the reflection of himself from his bedroom mirror. He was dressed in a black royal noble clothing with purple designs and large black cape like cloak with white fur at the edge. After getting a good look at himself, Dante bit his lower lip, unsure whether or not the clothes he's wearing actually suited him personally. Most of the time he usually wore normal and causal clothes since he rarely attended an high-class events and if he did, he usually wore a fancy black suit. Today, however, Dante had to attend somewhere where wearing suits weren't properly ideal to wear where he's heading.

 _*Knock, Knock*_

"Dante? Are you ready yet?" Dante heard the sound of his door opening and footsteps heading his way. From looking at the mirror, he saw his guardian Rudiger standing behind him. "Oh good. You look splendid for your first day of school."

Dante's right eye began to twitched as the young thirteen year old boy grunted in displeasure. Today was Dante's first day at a Rating Games school that most high-class devils attended in pursuit in the Rating Games. Though Dante himself does want to follow his parents footsteps and participant in the Rating Games, Dante himself dreaded to appear in class.

"Uncle, do I have to go through wit this? Can't you just do home school instead?"

Rudiger let out a sigh before placing a hand on Dante's shoulder. "I understand how you feel about this Dante. You have to believe when I tell that I don't want this, but you can't be cooped up in here and hide yourself from society that doesn't accept you. You need to stand up and prove that you're not going to back down from them."

 _'Easier said than done.'_ Dante thought as he rolled his eyes.

Dante was fully aware that only high-class devils and devils of privileged rank were allow to attend the Rating Game school. Though Dante was born with parents who are pure-blood nobles who were ranked "Ultimate-Class", to many of the other students he was seen nothing more than devil with a privileged rank. This was due to to the fact that devils from the Extra Demon Clans and those of the current government not having a good relationship ever since the civil war between the the Old Satan Faction and the Anti-Satan Faction.

When the civil war broke out, the Extra Demon Clans sided with the Old Satan Faction while the remaining devils of the 72 Pillars sided with the Anti-Satan Faction. Realizing that the war was in favor to the Anti-Satan Faction, many of the Extra Demon Clans cut off their ties with the Old Satan Faction and lived in isolation from both governments. It was many because of this the devils of the 72 Pillars had always have a negative view of the Extra Demons. Many of them have seen them nothing more than weak cowards that flee on the spot of danger and don't consider them to be true "pure-bloods" since their households weren't written in the 72 Pillars and their clans did nothing more than just served the original Satans.

Dante became fully aware of that during the funeral when some of the nobles talked about his father behind his back. He saw and heard how many of the nobles were glad that his parents were dead and spoke low about the Extra Demon Clans. Since Dante will be going to the same school where children of those nobles are attending, he wouldn't be surprise if their children shared the same view as them.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"Attention everyone. Today we're going to have a new student joining us today. Please give out a warm welcome to Dante Pruflas."

For a moment no one believed what the teacher just said till Dante walked into the classroom. To Dante's surprise, his class was quite small to right about under twenty students in all and there already two students he recognized. The first one was none other than lovely redhead Rias Gremory, who he first met at his parent's funeral, sitting in the front row and the other was the tall and muscular Sairaorg, who actually seemed to be pleased with Dante attending here compare to the rest of the class, which majority didn't seemed to be pleased, sitting all the way in the back.

Dante looked over the rest of the students in his classroom. Majority of them were appalled, baffled, and some even terrified by his appearance in the classroom. Dante noticed a student standing up from her seat. student who stood up was a young handsome boy right around Dante's age with short gray hair that and vibrant silver eyes. Like Dante, he wore nobles clothes with black and silver designs.

"This is some sort of twisted joke?" The young boy asked in a polite tone and lighthearted smile. "There is no way the board is allowing this defect to attend our classroom."

 _'Well the the discrimination came sooner than I suspected.'_ Dante didn't felt offended from heartless words of the gray hair boy. He knew how majority of these students were going to react to him appearing to this school. He didn't suspect that one of them had the guts to protest against him joining the school right in front of the teacher.

"Is there a problem with him attending here Prince Necrodsir Belial?" The teacher asked.

 _'Belial?'_ Dante recognized that surname very well. Belial was the household that is ranked "King" within the 72 Pillars and the same household where the current Rating Game champion head of the clan, Diehauser Belial. _'So there are members from the of the Belial household here in this school too. But that's odd. I thought the Belial clan had more compassion and respect for others. So why is this one behaving so rude and disrespectful?'_

"Of course." Necrodsir answered, ready to give his explanation in front of the entire class. "Though its not properly implied, this school has more standards than you think. And you know what that is? It's skill and talent. Everyone here in the class has talent. Whether it be demonic energy, intelligence, or even physical prowess, everyone has something that makes them stand out and deserved to be in this school. Pruflas here doesn't deserve to be here not because he's an Extra-Demon, but he doesn't posses any talents at all. Don't you think that if we allow this defect to join our ranks, our school, which is built on old tradition and pride, will lose face? We're basically allowing someone who's completely who's no better than a reincarnated devil or a lower class devil."

 _'At least he's not discriminating me for being an Extra-Demon at least.'_ Dante sighed. He was worried for a moment that Necrodsir was going to discriminate him for being an Extra Demon. Dante was well aware that he was born weak and low demonic energy. It didn't bothered or discouraged him that Necrodsir pointed his flaws. In fact his words were encouraging him to push himself to get even stronger. Dante wanted proved to Nercodsir that in the future he won't be the weakling as he is today.

Dante looked over at the rest of the students. Many of them began to nod their heads in agreement with Nercodsir's words. That was only fueled his urge to prove himself stronger. He looked over towards Rias and Sairaorg, who nether looked pleased with Necrodsir's words. They were rather offended by Necrodsir's words. They weren't the only ones as well. Right was next to Rias was a bespectacled girl with bob style black hair and purple eyes, looking displeased with everyone in the class. Another bespectacled girl with ruby eyes and long dirty blonde hair. Unlike the rest of the students who were for or against Dante attending here, she looked rather annoyed by this debate. And lastly there was another girl with long with golden blonde hair girl with her hair tied into drill like twin tails and dark blue eyes. Unlike the rest of the class, she looked rather timid to show any other expression.

"Though its true that Prince Pruflas lacks everything towards your standard Prince Necrodsir, you should not forget that he also earned the right to attend this school since he's a "High-Class" devil after all." The teacher reminded him coolly as the atmosphere turned tense. "If you have a problem with that, I can send straight to the principal office and you speak freely about your complaints over there."

"Fine. Have it your way." Necrodsir clicked his tongue with a bitter smile on his face, seemingly to back down from his position. Dante's eyes widen in surprise to see Necrodsir backing down so easily to the teacher. For a moment there Dante thought that Necrodsir has accepted defeat, but from the look in his sly gray eyes, he knew that it was far from over.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

A glow of a teleportation circle appeared with area of a deep thick forest. When the glow stopped, Dante's entire class appeared all huddled together on the spot. Everyone remained quiet and still as they heard sounds of unfamiliar animals echoed and a gentle breeze passed through the deep dark forest.

"Be daze!"

"Kya!" The blonde girl with twin tails jumped from the unfamiliar voice with the crowd and clutched herself to Dante's arm. Dante's body tensed up from feeling his arm felt from stuffed in between the softness of the platinum hair girl's developing bosom. He literally felt his heart pounding greatly as his blood rushed through his veins. Maybe he was over excited and his adrenaline was kicking , but Dante felt something was off when he sensed something inside of him just exploded from the inside and surged of unknown energy circulating through his entire body, but before he could even think what it was, his attention when towards the mysterious man who appeared out of nowhere.

He, liked everyone else, looked stupefied when they all looked at mysterious middle aged man with long red hair tied up into a pony tail and dressed in clothes that makes him looked an childish explorer, standing right next to Dante and blonde hair girl with twin tails.

"My name is Satooji of Madara Town! I'm a devil in training, aiming to become the Familiar Master!" The mysterious man said cheerfully, greeting himself towards the entire class.

Everyone blinked in surprised from the man's appearance for many reasons. For starters none of them were able to detect this strange man's appearance. All of them should have detected him since they're all high-class devil, but not a single one did. The other thing they were surprised by this man's childish appearance. His clothes looked it should belong to a youngster trainer from a Pokemon game.

"Oh good. You're here." The teacher said causally, walking up to the strange man. "Everyone, this our guide for today. He'll be the one who'll help us searched for familiars."

It something that the class planned before Dante enrolled into the school. Everyone's in Dante's class were going to searched for familiars in the special forest they were teleported to. According to the teacher familiars are considered as a basic requirement for Devils. They could assist their masters in various tasks, be used for information gathering and relaying messages, as well as perform any other odd jobs that their masters could think of.

But there were also another reason to come to the forest. It was get familiarized with this place. When High-Class devils recruit members into their peerages, their servants themselves will need familiars and majority of them will bring them to search for one.

"Okay everyone. Please tell me what kind of Familiar each one of you are searching for." Satooji requested as all of the students gathered around him.

"I want a familiar that's very strong!"

"I want a familiar that's fast!"

"I want one with poison!"

 _'Poison?'_ Dante thought as he looked at the rest of the students telling their ridiculous request for a familiar. A few wanted familiars that were either out of their league or not even native to the forest at all. Satooji made a few ludacris suggestions to students to after monsters like a Hydra and even a Dragon King like Tiamat, which to Dante felt was too difficult for anyone to tame. That made Dante skeptical about his guide, wondering if he was going to make this trip out alive or not.

"So sonny. What kind of Familiars do you and your girlfriend want?" Satooji asked directly at Dante.

"Girlfriend?" Dante widen his eyes in realization that the twin tail girl was still clinging on to his arm all frightened. When the two made eye contact, the platinum blonde hair girl's face turned red like Rias's hair as steam went out through her eyes. She quickly let go of Dante's arm and shoved him away from her, knocking him down to the ground.

"So? What kind of familiar are you looking for?" Satooji asked again.

"Ah... I don't know." Dante got back up and rubbed off the dirt on himself. "I just enrolled into this class today and didn't know we're going to catch familiar."

"Oh I see." Satooji turned around and walked in front of the class. "Well don't worry too much about it. You'll bound to find a familiar your interested in here. So calm down and enjoy the tour of the Familiar Forest."

The class began to follow Satooji after that. So far the walk through the familiar forest has been nothing but disappointment for many since arrival. A student called Iolava Amon, a well known pure-blood devil known for being perverted, asked Satooji for cute female types familiars, so Satooji took the entire class to a lake where a water Seirei, Undine, lives in. Everyone has heard the stories of how Udrine are known for attractive appearance and pure hearts, so everyone suspected a beautiful woman, but what came out of the lake was a terrifying, muscular cross dressing martial artist in a pink dress and blonde wig.

For a moment there everyone was appalled in response of the appearance of the martial artist till Satooji clarified that in fact monstrous martial artist was in fact the Udrine, leaving everyone fazed and terrified. Another one in a blue dress and matching hair appeared in the lake, glaring violently at the blonde hair one. Satooji revealed about how the Udrine are very territorial and fight off their kind for land. The two quickly engaged in hand combat, where the blonde one was the victor after a bloody fight. Satooji told everyone in the class that if there was anybody who wanted to take a chance into claiming the Udrine before going back into the lake, they should claim it now. But everyone weren't too sure about till Sairaorg came up to the lake with shirt off. He later head on to the Udrine and defeated him with his bare hands. Within the first few minutes of the class, Sairaorg became the first one to claim his familiar.

The next location they went is to a different lake where mermaids resided. Many of the students had their hopes up to see the beautiful half human and half fish hybrid, till a flock of tuna fish with feet came out of the lake. Everyone looked at the tuna with disbelief, believing that Sattoji was punking them and were going to kill him till the teacher intervened and explained that tuna fishes with legs were actually mermaids and revealed that the ones they heard in legend do exist, but they mostly reside in Atlantis. After hearing realizing that Sattoji wasn't lying, the class decided to leave till one of the students, Gragg Forneus, a pure-blood who looked like an anglerfish, decided to stay and recruited a couple of mermaids as his familiars. After claiming these new familiars, Gragg took them out of the lake a few minutes to spend on their land. But after a few minutes, they all dropped dead much to Gragg's dismay. Without anybody realizing it, their going to have a tuna feast for lunch later that day.

Within the first hour the class went to was near mountain side, where Satooji revealed that in the upper regions of the mountains resided a Yuki-oona, a rare race of Ice Youkai, which translated to be Japanese monsters. In legend, Yuki-oona are supposed to have the appearance of beautiful woman, but after experiencing the mermaid and Undine in person, everyone could already tell that wasn't the case at all. Majority of the students didn't want to go up till Rias of all people begged the teacher to go up to see the Yuki-oona. Dante didn't understood why someone like Rias wanted to go up to see the Yuki-oona in the first place till he heard whispers within his class about Rias is a huge Japanphile, which made Dante even more turned off about the redhead heiress of the Gremory clan.

Out of fear of being targeted by the Satan Lucifer, who was the older brother of Rias, the teacher begrudgingly agreed to Rias's request and took the whole class to go up. Since walking took so much time, everyone decided to fly up with their wings. Dante decided to stay back since unfortunately can fly for personal reasons, which the teacher had to stay back and watch over him. Though he wasn't sure what was going on up there, he could the screams of angry gorillas echoing through the air and shriek and cries of the class as well. Without giving it a second thought, Dante knew the class just encountered a real life Yuki-oona in person and are know fearing for their lives. Eventually all the yelling and screaming died out and everyone came back down via magic circle. Majority of them were scared and terrified of what just happened and even some with that suffer from degree of frost bite.

The teacher asked what happened up there and class explained that they were able to find a baby Yuki-oona up the hill, which turned out to be a baby Yeti. Even though it didn't match the description in legend, Rias got so fascinated that she wanted to claim the baby Yeti as her familiar and was about to till the mother and her band of Yetis came by and got enraged on Rias and the others for entering their territory and began to attack. Since the Yuki-oona were endangered species, everyone was forbid to use their magic against them and ran for their lives. Many of them were fortunate to come back unharmed, while some like Iolava and Gragg, were not.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

"Man today has been very heretic." After spending two hours within the Familiar Forest, the whole class decided to take a quick break near the picnic area within the woods. Majority of the students divided themselves into own groups, showing one another their familiars they have claimed with the forest. Dante himself sat alone on of the picnic tables, carrying a tiny newborn bunny with no furry in one hand and using the other to carry a battle bottle filled with a special formula. Dante brought the nipple of the baby bottle towards bunny's mouth. The bunny opened its mouth and bit on the nipple, slowly sucking on it.

After surviving the craziness within the first hour, the remainder of the class found familiars of their own at ease. The newborn rabbit Dante held in his hand was his familiar that he found abandoned alone in a small nest within the woods. Dante brought it to Satooji, who seemed bewildered to see a weak and defenseless animal like a normal rabbit living in forest that can easily kill it. Dante decided to keep as his familiar since the new born buny as his familiar since its too young and weak to survive on its own.

"Excuse me? Is this seat taken?" Dante shifted his gaze to the side to see a Sairaorg who stood between with none other than Rias and the black hair bespectacled girl.

"May we join?"

"Sure." Dante sounded hesitant when he said it. Ever since the funeral, Dante researched the type of person Sairaorg is. Through his resources, mainly his uncle, Dante learned that Sairaorg has been training his body as child to reclaim his title as heir to the Bael household. He also learned something else about the people Sairaorg recruited into his peerage. So far all of the members Sairaorg recruited into his peerages consists mainly of Devils that are scorned by other Devils, therefore they are thankful to Sairaorg for accepting them and as a result, are very loyal to him.

After learning this Dante became suspicious if Sairaorg came to his funeral just to recruit him into his peerage. Though he doesn't suspect Sairaorg trying to recruit him into his peerage, the heir did asked Dante regarding pure-bloods recruiting other pure-bloods into their peerage. But at the same time he seemed to agree with response and left after that. Whether way, Dante can't fully trust Sairaorg just yet.

"Ah! Is that your familiar?" Rias asked, noticing Dante's baby bunny in his hand.

"Yeah," Dante said as he took off the nipple of the bottle out of his familiar's mouth. "Do you want to hold it?"

"Of course!" Rias exclaimed, squealing in excitement. Dante carefully handed Rias the baby bunny into her hands. Rias began to stroke back of the rabbit' with one finger. "It's so cute. What did you name it?"

"Eve, I named her Eve." Dante said, revealing his bunny's gender.

"Eve? Like from the bible?" The bespectacled girl asked. "Oh sorry. I forgot to introduced myself. My name is Sona Sitri of the Sitri household. I'm the heiress of my clan."

Dante was familiar with the Sitri household. The hospital he woke up in was under the territory of the Sitri household, which is known for having advanced medical facilities as well having one of the most famous hospitals in the Underworld.

"It's an honor to meet you." Sona said, offering her hand out.

"It's an honor to meet you too," Dante respond, accepting Sona's hand shake. "Also no. Eve is short from Eevee from-"

"Pokemon!" Rias interrupted, finishing off Dante's sentence. "You're telling me that you named your familiar from one of the greatest video games that created in Japan right?"

"Err, yes?" Dante answered with a sweat drop on his forehead. _'A_ _h that's right. This girl is a complete Japanophile.'_ Dante shuddered as he remembered the students who suffered first degree frost bite all because Rias wanted to see a stupid gorilla.

"So how are you enjoying your first day?" Rias asked.

"It's alright." Dante shrugged. "If I h-had to complain about something, it has to be with the treatment I received earlier in the class."

"Oh you mean what happened with Nercodsir?" Sona asked.

"So what's the deal with Nercodsir? Aren't the Belial household are more sentimental and respectful to others?"

"Well the Belial clan is one of the few households that aren't as discriminate like other households, but Nercodsir is a different case." Sairaorg said. "Since he's a blood relative of the current champion and the new generation of the Belial clan, he believes that its his birth right to become the next champion in the Rating Game and that everyone else beneath him."

"Isn't that a bit supercilious?" Dante asked, looking over towards Necrodsir, who's having conversation with a groups that looked like his posse. "What makes him think that he's going to become the next champion of the Rating Games anyways? Just because your the relative of the champion doesn't mean you inherited his power and talent."

"Unfortunately that's how most devils function these days." Sona sighed, rolling her eyes. "Even though the underworld has changed a lot over the centuries, some things remain the thing. Majority of the higher-ups in the goverment are ancient nobles who lived for many centuries still value the old traditions and their demonic energy, which were implanted into their children, corrupting them in the process."

"What about you guys?" Dante asked. "It appears none of you don't have the same arrogance as the rest."

"Well that's because our households are different from the rest." Rias explained as she carefully handed back Eve back to Dante. "For starters my household don't discriminate on our own servants. In fact we cherish our servants very much and care deeply about them."

"Same goes for my household." Sona said. "My household rusn multiple hospitals. We consider everyone we treat as family to the point where we deeply care about our patients' health and well being."

Dante can vouched for that. He still remember the nice treatment he had from the staff, even though some did want to have him tested after his miraculous recovery.

"Speaking of servants, have you began searching for members for your peerage yet?" Sairaorg brought up.

"No, not yet." Dante said, shaking his head to the side. "I'm won't have my Evil Pieces yet till later today."

Evil Pieces. There a set of fifteen chess pieces given to high-class devils to use to reincarnate other beings into devil and servants of the high-class devil that reincarnated them. A few days after the funeral, Dante went to Agreas, a floating city that belongs under the custody of Agares, where materials of the Evil Pieces are placed in. Though the creation of the Evil Pieces do take place in Agreas and lead by the servants of the current Beelzebub, the High-Class Devil who desired to have their set of Evil Pieces must have to participate in the process of making their pieces with a special ceremony.

The special ceremony consist of the spiritual core of the high class devil connecting with special crystal used to create the Evil special ceremony consist of the spiritual core of the high class devil connecting with special crystal used to create the Evil Pieces. The purpose of this procedure is not only to implant on the owner so no one else can used them, but to also see the valuate how much a single high-class reincarnate into their peerage. If the spiritual core is weak, the high-class devil can't reincarnate as much powerful beings into their peerage without sacrificing many of their Evil Pieces, but if it strong, the high-class devil can reincarnate powerful beings with less pieces. In some cases, if a devil with a strong core has a unique talent in certain categories, a pure-blood devil can receive a Mutation Piece, which a single evil piece that is used to reincarnate an individual that requires multiple Evil Pieces.

Since Dante was born weak and fragile, he's core is weak. He can't reincarnate as much powerful members into his peerage without sacrificing too many pieces or receive a Mutation Piece, however he can change is core if trains himself. According to Rudiger, there is a special feature in the Evil Pieces. This feature is called the Unused Evil Pieces, which the pieces that Dante haven't used will undergo change according to the master's growth. So if Dante train hard enough, his value in evil pieces will grow and he can at least reincarnate enough descendant members to help him against the man in the mask.

"Kyaa!" A young girl screamed out from the depth of the woods.

A flock of birds flew out of the trees from the sharp cry within the woods. Everyone in the picnic stopped whatever what they were doing and froze out of fear. The teacher moved his eyes back and forth, counting the number of students within his horizon and gasped realizing that a few of them were not in the picnic.

"Someone! Please help!" The female voice cried out louder than before.

The teacher quickly ran towards the direction the shouts with Satooji and the rest of the class flowing from behind. Majority of the students summoned their wings and flowed by flight while Dante, who couldn't fly, ran by foot while still carrying Eve in his hands. He was last one of his class to arrive at the top of a hill, where the students, Satooji, and the teacher stood there helpless, staring down what was the bottom the hill.

"What's going on?" Dante asked as he move through his classmate. When he reached into the front, Dante jaw dropped, gawking at the scene at the bottom at the hill. What he and the rest of the class saw was students from his class down on the ground, lying on a puddle of their own blood. He noticed the blond hair girl with twin tails from before, cornered by a small horned beast responsible for injuring the other students.

The creature, who looked ready attack the defenseless girl, paused as if it sensed something. It around at the direction at the direction of the students, revealing it appearance to the class. Much to everyone's surprise, the creature responsible for injuries of the students was nothing more than a large, foot feet tall yellow rabbit with long golden horn on its forehead. Though it looked harmless, the rabbit's yellow fur and horn covered with blood.

 _'Rabbit!'_ Dante gasped. _'Don't tell me that rabbit is...'_

"Oh shit! I thought we exterminated them all." Satooji began to tremble nervously as his face began to shoot out bullets of sweet.

"Exterminate? What are you talking about?" The teacher grabbed Satooji by the collar of his shirt. "Tell me what in the hell that thing is and explain me to why you were trying to exterminate it?"

"That thing there is an Al-mi'raj! It's a mythical beast from Islamic mythology that were confined on the mysterious island of the Indian Ocean of the human world." Satooji explained frantically as his eyes got watery. "A few months back a friend of mine was able to catch a male and female Al-mi'raj rabbit and placed them within the forest to populate so we can sell these creatures as familiars to devils, but there was problem."

"Problem?"

"Yes. It turns out that there was reason why those rabbits were placed on the island in the first place. It turns out that the race are known for being a ferociously territorial predator known to be able to kill animals and people many times their own size with a few stabs of its horn. And not only that, but there also known for having an immense appetite that can devour other living things several times its size without effort. Within the first month most population of other species of this forest began to significantly dropped and it was because of the Al-mi'raj."

"So that why you were trying to exterminate it." The teacher said, now understanding the situation. The teacher let go of Satooji's collar and looked at the Al-mir'aj. "But it seems that you haven't exterminated them all. So what now? Do we just kill it?"

"You can't kill it so easily." Satooji informed him. "If you have to rate this creature in terms of Evil Pieces, you can say that it has the speed and agility of an knight, the strength and defense of a rook, and have magic attributes of an bishop. It's basically an all round queen."

"So what do we have to do?" The teacher asked.

"Well..." Right before Satooji could even suggest anything to rescue blonde hair girl from the Al-mir'aj, Dante began to walk down the hill. "Hey kid! What in the world are you going? Don't you know it's dangerous?"

Dante continued to walk down the hill, regardless of pleads Satooji made. Everyone began to murmured how crazy Dante was for trying to be some sort of hero as he reached the bottom.

The Al-mir'aj has been looking directly at Dante the whole time the moment he arrived. It turned around the moment he got in front of the class, and Dante knew this too, but he also knew why the horned rabbit was staring at him. He had something that belong to it and that thing was his new founded familiar, Eve. The Al-mir'aj must been Eve's parent and it must have left to search for food when Dante found Eve in her nest. When it realized that Dante took Eve from the nest, it must have went searching for it and encounter some of the students.

The horned rabbit began to growl the moment it saw its sleeping newborn in Dante's arm. Dante carefully walked forward to the Al-mir'aj with Eve, trying to figure how to return Eve without getting killed by the beast. With a good enough distance between him and the Al-mir'aj, Dante kneel down, ready place the Eevee on the ground in hopes of the Al-mir'aj of its daughter away and leaving the class room, but the Al-mir'aj on the other had different approached.

The moment it noticed Dante on his knees, the Al-mir'aj ran straight for the kill. It jolted straight towards Dante in the speed of light with its horn directly at Dante's throat. Dante saw the Al-mir'aj disappeared from its spot and stumble back to the ground. With the tip of the horn only few millimeters away of Dante's neck, the Al-mir'aj made eye contact with Dante's eyes and quickly stopped on the spot, leaving the tip of the horn barely touching Dante's throat.

Everyone on top of the hill became fazed at that moment. They couldn't believe the cuddly predator has stopped its track on the last second. While majority of the students were to stupefied to think straight, Sona, Sairarog, Rias, and few others began to noticed the looked in the Al-mir'aj's eyes. The looked in the animal's eyes seemed to be mesmerized like it was put under an trance.

Though the whole class couldn't grasp the situation, the twin tail girl who was cornered by the Al-mir'aj noticed something in Dante's eyes. The color of his eyes have changed from sapphire blue to fiery red the second the horned rabbit went for the kill. She could clearly tell that change in color of Dante's eyes hand something to do with it.

Without realizing the color of his eyes changed, Dante just stood there staring directly at the Al-mir'aj, who now looked more docile and possessed. Sensing the ill intent to kill him was gone, Dante reached his hand out towards the Al-mir'aj. He was about to touched the rabbit's head till a beam of demonic energy was shot directly at them both. Sensing an attack coming near them, the hypnotized rabbit knocked Dante away from the blast's range with a strong kick before the being engulfed the blast demonic energy, dying in the process.

After seeing the Al-mir'aj scarified itself for him, Dante's eyes turned back to normal as the surrounding got covered into smoke. When it cleared up, the Al-mir'aj was no longer there and its presence already vanished, but a the presence of the use of Demonic Energy was up in the air. Dante looked up and saw Nercodsir with his hand out and a magic circle engraved in his palm, indicating the one responsible for killing Eve's parent.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

 _*Slap!*_

"What in the hell were you thinking!? Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

After the Al-mir'aj incident, the teacher called the school regarding the incident that occurred in the familiar forest. All of the injured victims of the Al-mir'aj were sent to the hospital while the remaining were force to go back home. Though he wasn't injured himself, Dante was also sent to the hospital along with the blonde hair girl who was concerned for a quick check up. A couple of soldiers came to the hospital to question the victims and Dante about the incident. A couple of the victims woke up with no memories of the incident while the others were in a comatose. Dante told them everything he knew till one of Rudiger's servant came by and accompany back home.

When Dante was back home, the servant informed that he has to go wait in his room till Rudiger arrived and Dante obliged. Dante went up his room and kept himself occupied till his guardian arrived. By the time he sensed Rudiger , Dante dropped what he was doing and waited patiently on his bed. When Rudiger came up to his room, the first thing he did was deliver a powerful slapped straight to Dante's cheek before wrapping around his arms.

"Sorry." The unfazed thirteen year old boy apologized. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Well you don't looked your sorry." Rudiger removed his arms around Dante and sat down next to him on the bed. "So tell me Dante. Why did you go down there and confronted the Al-mir'aj all by yourself?"

"I was trying to return Eve back to her family."

"Eve?" Rudiger raised a brow as Dante got off the bed and picked up a small cage that was left on his drawer. Dante brought the cage over to the bed, where Rudiger noticed the small newborn bunny sleeping peacefully top of straw and hay. "Wait? You were trying to return this infant back to the Al'mir-aj?"

Dante nodded his head. "I found her alone in a nest and took her as familiar. Her parent must have went searching for Eve the moment it saw her gone from the nest. It must have attacked the students on its way to there. I already lost my family and didn't want another one to be destroyed, so I tried to return Eve back to her parent, but that didn't end well as I hope."

"Okay, so that's what exactly happened." Rudiger got up from the bed. "I'm glad you tried your best to do the right thing, but you could have gotten yourself killed. Promise me you won't do anything that reckless again."

"I will." Dante promised.

"Good." Rudiger head out to the door. He stop as he reached at the door way. "By the way. While you were getting yourself almost killed in your field trip, a package for you showed up today."

"A package?" Dante cocked his head.

"Yeah, it from Agreas." Rudiger confessed.

 _'Agreas?"_ Dante widen his eyes, realizing what came in the mail today. "You don't mean."

Rudiger grinned. "Yes. Their finally here."

 ** _~DOTA~_**

It was the next day of school and Dante wasn't eager to show up to class. After the Al-mir'aj incident, Dante could already imagine the rumors spreading out the whole school about how he almost got killed by a stupid rabbit and had to be saved by none other Nercodsir of all people. When he entered the school, he already saw students all whispering to another as he walked to his classroom. When he looked over the students, many of them averted their eyes away from making eye contact with his out of fear, much to Dante confusion. Dante initially thought that everyone would be laughing on now since he was almost got killed by a bunny rabbit, so why weren't they?

When Dante entered his classroom, everyone remained silent and vigilant of Dante as he walked towards his desk. They everyone kept their eye on him till he arrived to desk. Even though his classmates weren't observing him anymore, Dante felt the wary atmosphere throughout the classroom.

"Oh hello Dante." Dante turned around to see Sairaorg in the seat next to him, seemingly rather nonchalant to the cold atmosphere the classroom is giving. "How have you been?"

"Fine I guess."

"You sure? You seemed rather perplexed."

"Well..." Dante scratched the back of his head as he looked back at the class. "Haven't you noticed how different our classmates are behaving around me? It seemed like they're afraid of me or something."

"Oh no. They're definitely afraid of you." Sairaorg assured him.

"Eh? Why?"

"You really don't know?" Sairaorg looked at Dante. By looking at his baffled expression, Sairaorg could tell that Dante wasn't lying and did had no idea what he was talking about. "Never mind. Let's talk about that later. So did you get your Evil Pieces?"

"Evil Pieces?" Dante quickly remembered the conversation he had with Sairaorg and the girls regarding the Evil Pieces. "Oh yeah. I got them after school."

"Can I see them?"

"Well..." Dante face tensed up as if he was hesitant to show them to Sairaorg.

"What's wrong? You don't want show them?"

"Kind of." Dante nodded. "I don't want to show any attention with my pieces."

"You have nothing to worry about." Sairaorg assured him. "Everyone here already have their own Evil Pieces. Some even have Mutation Pieces if that worries you."

"Hmm..." Dante bit his lower lip, thinking whether or not to show his Evil Pieces. Deciding to take Sairaorg's word, Dante summoned a magic circle on top of his desk and a fifteen piece chess set appeared. Within that set Dante had eight pawn pieces, a pair of rook, bishops, and knights, all color in pearly white. The queen piece, however, was colored different color. It was color fiery red.

The classmate who was sitting on the other side from Dante took noticed of this and screamed: "Oh shit! Is that queen piece a mutation piece!?"

The Queen piece that Dante had was in fact a Mutation Piece. Dante was shock himself when he saw the Evil Piece set yesterday with Rudiger. For a moment Dante thought his Queen was initially was meant to be a different color till his uncle clarified it to him that his piece he was a Mutation Piece. Dante believe he had a Mutation Piece in his possession and it was queen at that. He wasn't sure if he was lucky enough to obtain one or it was fluke that his queen piece was mutated one.

This grabbed the attention of everyone else in the classroom. Everyone turned their heads directly at Dante's desk to verify the queen piece in Dante's possession. Seeing many of his students getting off of their seats, Dante quickly snapped his finger to make all of his Evil Pieces to disappeared on the spot. Even though he made his pieces go away, nevertheless all of the students in his class crowded around his desk.

"Dante my man! How has my favorite devil been doing? Why don't you show your best buddy that queen piece of yours?"

"Don't friendly with him! Weren't you the one of the many who opposed him coming into this school in the first place?"

"You're the one to talk! You also opposed him of being here!"

"I'm not here to be his friend! I'm here just to verify if his Queen Piece is a Mutation Piece and not fake!"

Yeah right!"

Man of the students began to argue with one another, getting the situation to get out of hand. While many argued, a few other students walked up to Dante with special offers on their hands.

"Dante my boy, I have special offer you can't refuse. If you trade me your mutation piece, not only I give you my precious queen, but you can also have my fiance from the house of Vassago as well! What do you say?"

"Iolava! I'm standing right next to you know! Listen Pruflas, if you give me that mutation piece, not only I give you an excellent queen that's better than my crummy fiance, but I can give all sorts of connections in politics. I give you my word!"

"Don't listen to those lower ranks! I can give you more and better connections of those from the Great-King faction! Oh by the way if you don't know who I am, I'm Flavuur Asmoday, I'm second line for my household, which is rank king."

 _'You didn't need to worry, he said.'_ Dante turned over towards to Sairaorg with dirty look on his face. The muscular teen let out an apologetic smile like he was truly responsible for the incident. Dante didn't buy it and he was force to endure all the fighting and offerings around his desk till the teacher came by the class and broke the whole thing up.

 **~DOTA~**

After the teacher subdue the entire class, the day went like nothing special has happened. By the time lunch began, many students brought their queens to school in hopes of trading them for Dante's mutation Piece, which he blatantly refused. During free period, Dante spoke to Sairaorg and the girls in question why were so many people were intrigued by Dante's mutation piece if some students already had mutation pieces of their own.

Both Sona and Sairaorg explained that out of the Mutation Piece, the queen piece is the most rarest piece of them all. It's so rare that not even the four Satans of the Underworld have a mutation piece that is ranked "Queen". In comparison to the other Mutation Pieces, which would suffice reducing the amount of pieces to reincarnate someone, depending on the high class devil reincarnating them, the queen piece would absolute reincarnate someone without fail. Dante at first didn't understand it till Rias compare his Mutation Piece to a Master Ball from Pokemon, which he quickly understood now.

With that said, Dante began to wonder how did came in possession with a Mutation Piece like his queen piece. Most of the devils who do have Mutation Pieces were born special talent in certain categories. For one who possessed a mutated bishop, they would have talent regards with demonic energy and magic. For rook it would be absolute power, and knight is technique and speed. Dante wasn't sure for about requirements of achieving a mutated pawn piece, but since Sairaorg revealed that he did in fact obtained one, it must have something with the will to improve and raise their rank rather than actually having actually talent. Most pawns start out weak till they promote themselves after reaching the other hand of the chess board and achieve power beyond their imagination.

But what about Dante's case? He doesn't any special traits and his powers are below average. So why was he given the rarest Mutation Piece of them all. Was it all by coincidence and/or fluke? Or was that Dante had some dormant skills, powers, and abilities that he haven't awakened yet?

"Dante?" Dante snapped out of his train of thought as he heard his name being called. Without remembering he was, Dante looked around his surrounds to see he was in the dining table, sitting a cross from Rudiger. "Dante, what's wrong? You haven't touched your food."

"Oh sorry. I'm not that hungry."

 _*Growl*_

As if it was on cue, Dante's stomach growled through out the dining room the instant Dante finished talking. Dante sheepishly grinned as his face turned slightly red as Rudiger looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"Well I wasn't hungry a second ago." Dante chuckled.

Rudiger rolled his eyes as he took a bite of his steak. "Alright, Dante. Tell me what's on your mind."

"Fine." Dante let out a sigh. "Ever since I discovered that my Queen piece was a Mutation Piece, it brought me nothing but trouble. Not only its giving me unnecessary trouble in school, but it also making me paranoid."

"So why don't you just use it already? It seems that the longer you have that piece unused the more trouble it would get you in the future."

 _'Use it?'_ Dante hasn't given much into what he wanted into a queen. His mind has been occupied whether or not his obtaining his Mutation Piece was a fluke or not. What does he want in a queen? He wanted someone he can rely on. Someone who can excel in all departments in terms of technique, power, wizardry, and support. He wanted someone who can adapt into a situation. Someone who can fight in all ranges of combat whether be hand to hand combat, battle of magic, or even swordsmanship. He wanted some one who can be an all-rounder.

"Uncle, I know what I want in my queen."

 _ **~DOTA~**_

A couple of weeks have passed since Dante told Rudiger in what type of queen he wanted. With Rudiger's help, Dante was given connections to resources all over the world to search for his perfect queen. So far he found multiple reliable and talented applicants to be his queen and as well for his other pieces. Dante found many candidates he could reincarnate as his queen piece, but none of them lived up to his criteria. Whether be their lacking in other departments, their race, or even how value they require to be reincarnated, none of them fit the role of being Dante's queen.

"What's wrong with me Uncle? Why can't find someone to be my damn queen already." Dante laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. "How many applicants have we gone through to? A hundred? Thousand?"

"Now, now Dante. You shouldn't be upset. This minor setback is only telling us that your taking recruitment seriously." Rudiger said, trying to cheer up Dante up, but failed in the process. "Okay Dante, let's reflect on all the people we interviewed in the last couple weeks."

"Reflect? How?" Dante asked, getting back up from the bed.

"Well let's find a common trait they all shared." Rudiger explained.

"A common trait? Like what? With everyone we interviewed were all different from the next. I don't think I can find a common trait within the group we interviewed."

"Then find a trait that they didn't possess that you want."

A common trait that everyone lacked? All of them were suitable and unique to be his queen, but all were lacking something important that Dante wanted more than skill and talent. Something that Rias, Sairaorg, and Sona all have in their queens.

"Loyalty. They lacked loyalty."

"Loyalty?" Rudiger cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"Though all of the candidates seemed to have all the determination to be my queen, but none of them lacked loyalty to follow me at the end." Dante explained. "With all of the determination comes arrogance and false sense of security. That's something I don't want when we face the man in the mask."

Rudiger grimaced on the inside when Dante mentioned the man in the mask. Though he admired Dante's determination to get stronger, Rudiger is frightened that the Dante's obsession was going to get the best of him. He needed to keep Dante's judgment from being clouded from the man in the mask, or east keep his mind off of him as much as possible. But how was he going to do that?

Then a thought hit him.

"Uncle?" Dante said, noticing his guardian going all silent and deep thought. "What's wrong."

"Dante. I think I know where to find you queen that fits all your standards, especially with loyalty."

 _ **~DOTA~**_

Before Rudiger was reincarnated into a devil, he was once a famous magician known in the organization Rosenkreutzer, a magician ossociation that has connections to the church and heaven till his reincarnation into a devil, where only served Dante's father, Bellicione Pruflas till the day he was promoted into High-Class, where he found a high level position in Mephisto Pheles's wizard organization known as Grauzauberer. Within the Grauzuberer, Rudiger is in charge in multiple facilities all over the human world. Within one of these facilities is where Dante's desired Queen is in.

Dante has visited to many of these facilities before his family's death, none of these facilities he visited to looked like a prison. Dante didn't understood why they were going into a prison and when he asked Rudiger where why they were here, but Rudiger didn't respond one bit as the advanced through the hallway. They stopped in front of a cell door that was labeled in Norse letters. Rudiger placed his hand on the cell door. A magic circle appeared on contact as the sound of moving steel as if it lock of the doors began to unlock. Rudiger took his hand out off the door and backed away.

"Go." Rudiger told him. "You don't want to keep your queen waiting."

Dante wasn't sure whether or not Rudiger was joking, but the serious look in his eyes showed that he wasn't lying. Without saying another word, Dante obliged to his guardian's demand and opened the cell door. He took in a deep breath before taking a step in the dark cell. As he entered the cell, Dante gasped at the sight of the individual within the cell.

The prisoner in the cell was young girl around Dante's age lying on the cell bed. She was cover in white bandages from head to toe with her face covered up. Her body was scrawny to the point she was skin and bone. With her condition, she was too weak to move a single muscle. Dante walked closer to the girl, where he noticed that her left eyelid was unwrapped, revealing weak timid green eye.

Dante thought for a second that the girl was dead, but he when noticed that the left eye moved directly at him. Seeing that caused Dante to cringed and walked backward towards the door, without taking her eyes away from the girl.

"So what do you think?" Rudiger asked.

"Who is she?" Dante asked.

"Her name is Bernadette." Rudiger revealed. "Though she might not look like it, I grantee you that this girl will live up to your exceptions as your queen."

* * *

 **Well I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Sorry it took so long, there were many things I had to take out and replaced many scenes and characters, plus I was occupied with Batman: Arkham Knight and work. Plus the reason why I made this chapter is long because I'm going out of the for ten days, which I'll be leaving next Friday and decided to write this as soon as possible. Before I do go, I want to publish the next chapter of "A Fragile Heart" before I leave the country. Also what do you think of this chapter regarding the process of Evil Pieces and achieving a Mutation Piece. I felt that there's more details into achieving a Mutation Piece and the process of making Evil Pieces that the author left out.**

 **Speaking of the author if you haven't heard, the author's making a new DxD project called Highschool DxD EX. If you want to know more of this project of his, just looked the blog on the DxD wikia to know more what is EX is about.**

 **Also kudos for anyone to figure all of the genuine characters of the DxD universe within this chapter that made cameos. First one to name them all gets a special spoiler from me.**

 **Now let's update Dante's profile on Skill and Abilities & Weaponry (Note the profile on his forum: **

**Hypnotism: Though the extent of this power is unknown, Dante possess power of hypnotism to degree where he can put a mythical creatures under his control. His eyes turned red whenever he uses this power.**

 **Weaponry:**

 **Eve: She's an Al-mir'aj rabbit that Dante found as a newborn bunny. So far none of the skill and abilities have been reveal since her powers aren't developed since's a couple weeks old.**

 **Now to label his first member into his peerage: (Note: Because with my discussion with my editor and researching other mythologies, I have to revised the entire peerage, but I won't reveal their identities or physical descriptions just yet.)**

 **Queen (Mutation): Bernadette**

 **Knight: N/A**

 **Knight: N/A**

 **Bishop: N/A**

 **Bishop: N/A**

 **Rook: N/A**

 **Rook: N/A**

 **Pawns: N/A**

 **Now for the preview of the next chapter:**

 **Dante has now encountered Bernadette, and decided to reincarnate her after taking Rudiger's word, but the real challenge just began as he tried to bring his queen into civilization, but doing this is easier said as done as Dante realized that turning Bernadette into his civilized queen isn't as simple as it seemed when Rudiger revealed a shocking secret on her background.**

 **Next time in Devil of the Apocalypse: The Bandage Girl Part 02**

 **Dante: For now on you'll live your my sake.**


	4. Bandage Girl Pt 02

**Well here's the first chapter of my next chapter of Devil of the Apocalypse after my next extended vacation in Costa Rica and soon I'll be going back to school. Don't worry I'll still continued writing A Fragile Heart and this story, while considering working on A New Opportunity if I got over my "Phase" of how most DxD stories are still cliches of a basic rewrite of the canon. Curse you DC comics with their supposed Creativity over Continuity campaign.**

* * *

 _*Tick Tock Tick Tock*_

How long has been since they have abandoned her? A day? A week? Months? Years? She's been locked up in her dark cell for so long that she lost track of time. The cell she was locked in had a grandfather clock to tell time, but her body weak and cripple to move, and her cell too dark to see, she couldn't tell the time on the clock even if she wanted to. Even if she did muster the strength to move and see through the dark to see the time, she couldn't tell whether its morning or night.

For the first time in long time she heard the sound of steel moving as if the lock of her cell door is being unlocked. Next she heard the sound of the cell door opening slowly and sensed the ray of light entering her dark cell and blinding for the first time in a long time. She didn't know what's going on and feared who was coming in. Why were the people who promised to save her and later abandoned her here coming back here? Did they have the cure for her dilemma? Or were they going to finish her off for all?

The footsteps were coming closer and within her horizon, she noticed a young thirteen year old boy with long messy, spiky black hair and sapphire blue eyes dressed in black noble clothing. He looked shocked to see her and she in return responded the same way by moving her opened eye, spooking the boy. He began to walked back towards the exit of the cell, backwards without taking his eyes off of her.

When she no longer saw him in her line of vision, the door closed and the sound of steel echoing through the wall for a second time, indicating that the cell door was locked up.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"It's not that I don't trust your judgement Uncle, but why would I want this girl to become my queen?" Dante leaned his back to the wall and crossed his arms as he watched Rudiger locked the cell door with magic circle. "Who exactly is Bernadette and why is she locked up here?"

"Dante have you ever heard legends regarding battle Valkyries of Norse Mythology?" Rudiger brought up.

"Valkyrie? Aren't they are group of demigoddess that served under Odin as his personal soldiers?" Dante was well informed about Valkyries and Norse mythology. Ever since he can remember his parents have always told him bedtime stories of every mythology in the world. Most of the stories were legends and tales of noble heroes over coming great obstacles and rest were basic information with major gods of the well known mythologies.

Then a thought came to Dante. "Wait a minute. Is Bernaedette a Valkyrie?"

Rudiger rested his forehead on the cell door, taking a deep breath before responding. "She's not just any Valkyrie. She's the descendant and current reincarnation of the strongest and most powerful Valkyrie of them all, Brunhilde."

"Brunhilde?" Dante heard that name before. She's a Valkyrie that served Odin, but got on his bad side and got locked up in a dungeon, which was was guarded by the legendary dragon king Fafnir and was rescued by the original Siegfried. The two fell in love with another, but their love didn't last as Siegfried got intoxicated by potion to forget Brunhilde and later married to another. Heartbroken and unaware that her beloved was under the influence of another, Brunhilde decided to get involve of conspiracy of murdering Siegfried and worked. But on the day of her beloved's funeral, Brunhilde still harbored feelings for her Siegfried and jumped into Siegfried's aflame pyre and died with him.

That was story of Brunhilde. She was Juliet to Siegfried's Romeo. But there was something that bothered Dante about Rudiger just said to him. "Hold on a sec. You said that Bernadette was Brunhilde descendant. But legend never stated that Brunhilde had a child."

"That's what everyone thought at first till a Norse king discovered the woman he fell in love had resemblance to Brunhilde. After more trails and examinations happened, it turns out that this the king's wife was in fact was the daughter of Brunhilde and Siegfried. Turns out that Brunhilde bear Siegfried's child right before he was under the spell of someone else." Rudiger revealed.

"Okay, but how do you know she's the current reincarnation of Brunhilde?" Dante asked.

"Well you know that reincarnation works if one person dies, they later get reborn into something else. But most cases the people who died are later reborn within descendants of their bloodline. In her a Bernadette's case, she first female descendant of Brunhilde in a long time. Majority of Brunhilde's descendants were all male and to make sure she was the current reincarnation, the Norse Gods examined her spiritual core and discovered that her core was identical to her ancestor, making her current reincarnation."

Rudiger paused, allowing Dante to take a moment to allow the feeling to seek in. "Now you must be curious why is she here. Well after discovering that the current reincarnation of the ultimate Valkyrie was in their grasp, the Norse Gods decided to create a special project to enhanced Bernadette through a series of experiments to make her the ultimate soldier and tried another shot at the clone project to create a massive army of the powerful Valkyrie. The experiment failed and Bernadette became fully unstable of her powers, turning into a ticking time bomb strong enough to destroy Asgard. Unsure what to do, the Norse Gods actually turned to Mephisto's organization, where they developed a special room for her and left her all alone for all these years."

Dante couldn't believe it. Bernadette had more merits than he could ever imagine. Not only she's descendant of the most powerful Valkyrie of Norse mythology, but she also the current carrier of her spirit, which means she inherit all her ancestor's power and abilities. Not only that, but she was physical enhanced in a failed project. Everyone in the underworld was aware that current Lucifer's Rook was an unstable clone of Norse entity Surtr. Saving him by reincarnating him with a Mutation, Sirzechs possess the strongest Rook in the underworld.

If Dante reincarnated Bernadette, not only he'll posses the current reincarnation of the most powerful Valkyrie in history, but he also claimed an amplify Valkyrie who might the greatest asset against the man in the mask. But Dante felt something wrong with this.

"What's the catch, Uncle?"

"Catch? What Catch?" Rudiger looked back at Dante innocent as if he had no idea what was Dante talking about. "I'm just offering you the greatest opportunity of an life time. If you can reincarnate this girl with your Mutation Piece, you'll have most powerful queen that could even rival to those of the Satan's. What do you say?"

"Well..." Dante still felt suspicious. He still haven't grasped his guardian's intentions just yet. Maybe the catch is that Dante must take his time and raised this girl into a proper civil queen. She spent her whole experimented and confined into those walls, she doesn't know how to act, behave, or live in high-class society. That should be the case, but Dante felt there was more to that.

After some properly thinking Dante decided to summoned his Mutation Piece. Seeing this, Rudiger unlocked the cell door again and watched Dante walked back inside the cell door before following him from behind.

Dante swallowed the remaining his saliva in mouth, feeling completely overwhelmed for what he's going to do. He stopped stood right next to Bernadette's bed, struggling to maintain a straight, poker face as he looked down at her.

"Hello Bernadette. My name is Dante Pruflas. I'm pure-blood devil of an Extra Demon Clan Pruflas." Dante introduced himself as he raised his queen piece. "You know what this piece is right? It's call an Evil Piece. It's used for high-class pure-blood like myself to reincarnate other races into devils themselves and live to serve their master. And I intend to use this Queen piece on you and make you my servant."

Bernadette widen her eyes in shock. She couldn't believe what she just heard. Was this young devil really going make a defective and useless person like her as his servant? And the piece he has in his hand. It was a queen piece. She knew a bit about Evil Pieces during her time as a lab rat back in Asgard. She heard rumors from the scientist and magicians about the devils and their Evil Pieces. She heard stories of high-class devils enslaved people from other races into their peerages against their will and are force to endure mistreat their ruthless masters give them. Would Dante treat her poorly like in the stories she heard? She didn't know what worse. Forsaken to live her entire life in solitude in a jail cell or be servant of a devil would mistreat her.

Dante placed his mutated Queen Piece on Bernadette's chest and backed away. He spread his arms out as a magic appeared between Bernadette's back and her bed. Dante took in one last breath before beginning to speak.

"In the name of Dante Pruflas, I ordered you, Bernadette, to be reborn as a devil and become my servant! You, my queen, will live for my sake for the rest of eternity!"

The fiery red queen piece glowed and sunk into Bernadette's body. Sparks of red lightning struck out from the Evil Pieces, spiraling all over the cell. Seeing this, Rudiger rushed over to Dante's side and created a barrier to protect them from the unstable lightning.

"Uncle? What's going on? Is that part of the reincarnation process?" Dante asked.

"No. It shouldn't. Is the Evil Piece not manifesting itself with Bernadette?" Rudiger wondered.

Bernadette's body began to elevate off the bed as her body began to glow a red aura. Dante and Rudiger shield their eyes as the the red aura around Bernadette flashed throughout the cell. When the light died out, the cell was burnt in black. Both men within the barrier were unharmed, though they were temporarily blind from the light. When their vision came back, they were left at awe at what they saw.

Standing on Bernadette's bed was beautiful young fair skin girl with long light brown hair and light emerald green eyes dressed with nothing more than long white tape bandages that were fall off from her body. Both of men in the room were astonished by her beauty.

"Bernadette? Is that you?" Dante had the asked as he approached the young girl. The young girl shuddered in fear and scooted to the edge of her bed as Dante reached his hand out. Seeing this Dante realized that the girl was truly was Bernadette. "It is you."

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"That's it. Take one step at at time." A month has since Dante has reincarnated Bernadette into devil and became Dante's queen. A lot has transpired over the month. First off the crowd of students that's been bothering Dante for his mutation piece spotted their pursuit when Dante confessed to the whole class that he already had used his piece to reincarnate Bernadette. Many of them were baffled by this and asked Dante exactly who did he reincarnate with his mutation piece, which Dante couldn't say anything at all. Everyone in his class was going to be his competition in the Rating Games future. If he exposed his hand too soon, they will figure techniques and strategies to defeat Bernadette.

The other thing that happened during the month was Bernadette's treatment. Even though Dante's mutation had cured Bernadette's physical appearance and sealed up majority of her powers, her body was frail and weak. She required physical therapy treatment. On the first day of becoming a devil, Bernadette tried to flee from her cell, but she barely walk and almost fell to the ground till Dante caught her. She struggled to break free, but she barely posses the strength to move and began to have a panic attack.

Seeing this, Rudiger realized that she's has haphephobia, the fear of being touched. She must have developed that fear during her time as experimental lab rat in Asgard. During her first week of being a devil, Bernadette will suffered through massive attacks whenever someone tried to touch her. Even though she eventually got comfortable around Dante and Rudiger, she still shiver whenever one of them tried to touch her.

Also during her first day as a devil, not only Bernadette suffered through haphephobia and random panic attacks, she also was trying to starve herself. She rarely ate anything that chefs made for. Many tried to force feed her the food, which lead her to have another panic attack. Rudiger almost had to hypnotism Bernadette to eat. She eventually began to eat after her hungry got the best of her on the third day.

Her physical therapy was also difficult to maintain at first. Not only she was required to wear stuff like leg braces, but it was difficult for the medics not touch her without Dante being there to calm her down. Without much of a choice, Dante attended all the sessions Bernadette had within the month. Much to the young king's surprise, Bernadette made a quickly recover in her therapy as he observed her walked for the first time without her leg brace.

He stood with the therapist next to the parallel bars, where Bernadette held on to as she took first few steps before letting go to see how well she walk without any support on her own. She was a bit shaky at first, unable to stand still. But within a few seconds Bernadette stood perfectly still and stood there for at least half minute before talking her first step. Dante smiled when Bernadette began to walk causally like a normal person.

"Congregates Bernadette. You're now able to walk on your own two feet."

"..." Bernadette blushed when she noticed the smile on Dante's face and adverted her eyes away from his. It's been always like this between Dante and Bernadette ever she calmed down around him and accepted her life as a devil. Bernadette never say anything unless spoken to and when she did she speak, she only spoke in short sentences.

It was difficult for Dante to have a conversation with Bernadette. Not only that his queen rarely spoke, but he had to be careful to what he has to say to his queen. He didn't want to bring up any bitter old memories that could Bernadette to regress back to her spasm panic state.

"L-Lord Dan-te." It happened after Bernadette's session was over. Both Dante and Bernadette waited in the training for the doctor to come in and give Bernadette's her latest report to them. As they waited, Bernadette decided to speak up for the first time left Dante shock. "M-May I ask something?"

"Y-es?" He's off guarded when she spoke up on her own for the first time. This was also the first time she called him master too. She hasn't referred him to anything during their time together, not even his name or even call him sir or master. "What is it?"

"I... I want to... discuss about training."

"Training?"

"Yes." Bernadette nodded. "I-I'm curious to know when I'm going begin my training."

Dante hasn't consider Bernadette's training till she was completely rehabilitated both physically and mentally. As of now, Dante hasn't consider Bernadette to be fully rehabilitated. She may have regain stability in her body, Dante felt she wasn't mentally prepared for what's to come. Not only she had her training to become an all rounded fighter, but she also needed to understand the devil alphabet and she needed to have learn how to behave like a civil queen. It's too overwhelming for to handle all at once.

"Let's discuss this later." Dante promised her. "But what made you to bring it up?."

"I over heard you talking with your uncle regarding your training and I'm wanted if I had to through training myself." Bernadette said, looking a bit guilty as clutched both her hands together into a fist. "F-Forgive me. I didn't mean to eavesdrop on you or anything."

"It's fine." Dante assured her. "You're my queen. You have the right to know what's happening in my personal life if you want to or not."

"Alright. May I ask you another question?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"What exactly are you training for?" Bernadette asked. "Are we going in war or something?"

Dante opened his mouth, but not a single word came out. He looked down at his lap as he hands clutched on to his pants. The memories of the incident in his family's castle appeared in his mind. Dante's body tensed up and shake in rage. The strong emotions of rage surged through Dante's body, building up in Dante's body ready to explode.

"L-Lord Dante?" Bernadette cocked her head, confused at her master's raged expression. "Lord Dante, are you alright?" Bernadette reached her hand on top of Dante's. She gently squeezed Dante's hand. From feeling the gentle warmth of Bernadette's palm, the tense utter rage building up in his body fading away. Dante looked up with his face slighted redden to Bernadette, who also had her face colored in different shades of red.

They remain in that position in silence for a while till the the doctor came back with Bernadette's report.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

The school bell ranged, indicating that class was now over. All the students packed their bags, ready to leave school and head back home. Dante finished gathering his belongings, ready to head out of school and go home and to Bernadette. As he walked out to the classroom and into the hallway, he felt unusual presence trailing him from behind. Whenever Dante turned around to look at it, it always disappeared in plain sight, though Dante is obvious enough to notice it.

Dante wasn't bothered at first since this person wasn't going to harem him and thought that it was nothing more than a phase that they'll get over it. But lately it was beginning to bothered Dante everyday now. He couldn't comprehend why this person was following him or what motive this person had.

"Having troubles with your admirer?" An annoyed vein popped out from left side of Dante's forehead from hearing the mused tone coming from Sairaorg's tone, who waited for at the flay foyer. "What?"

"Nothing." Dante rolled his eyes, trying his best to not to snapped at the only person he could consider his friend. "I don't consider this person to be my admirer. I didn't do anything to deserve one."

Dante looked back at the hallway where a young girl with curly hair tied into two drilled shape twin tails hid behind a crash can. Dante sighed, recognizing the girl. She was Ravel Phenex, the daughter of the current head of the prestigious Phenex Clan. She was the same girl that was cornered by the Al-mir'aj rabbit in the incident. Ever since that same incident, she's been observing Dante, watching his every move in school whenever she had the chance.

Dante was aware she had good intentions of following him. Whenever he was able to take a glance at her, she would always blushed and looked away nervous and had the same look of admiration and attraction he had when he first laid eyes of Rias before discovering she was an heiress of her clan. Could it be possible that the Ravel girl had a crush on him after he was braved enough to confront the horned rabbit on his own?

Sure from the perspective of the other students, Dante went down there on his own to rescue Ravel, but in reality he was returning Eve back to her parent. Unbelievable. Ravel might have developed feelings towards Dante from misunderstanding. Ah great, it's another problem Dante had to deal with, or so he thought at first.

 _'What if I used this to my advantage?'_ Dante wondered. The girl he did rescued did belong to the house of Phenex, a well known household that produced Phenex Tears, a liquid that is used to heal injures to the point reattached severed limbs. If he pursue the relationship with the Phenex girl and if it worked out well, not only will have connections to the Phenex Tears for his personal need, he could also have pure-blood like her to help populate his clan back into the current government.

"Hey Dante, why are you grinning like that?" Sairaorg asked, not liking the look on his friend's face.

"Eh? I'm grinning?" Dante didn't sensed that his own lips moved on their own.

"Yeah. It's kind of giving off a grin that only a super villain has." Sairaorg clarified. "Don't tell me you're going to do something vile or take advantage of that poor girl."

The atmosphere between the two turned cold and tense. By seeing the solemnness in Sairaorg's eyes, Dante could tell that Sairaorg was taking his mischievous grin too serious and is aware that Dante is up to something. Dante couldn't help but to impressed by this and let out a sigh.

"Don't worry Sairaorg. I have no intention of doing something ill to the Phenex girl." Even though Dante assured Sairaorg, Dante hasn't wiped that menacing grin on his face. Sairaorg knew that Dante was plotting something indeed, but he felt the tone in his voice was reassuring him that he wasn't to do anything harmful to the Ravel Phenex.

Deciding to take Dante's word, Sairaorg decided to close his eyes and take deep breath. "Fine. I'll take your word for it. But if you dare to cross your own words, I'll grantee you that it's going to end well for neither one of us."

It wasn't a threat. It was a promise. From listening the tone Sairaorg's tone, Dante could tell that if he did took advantage of the Phenex Girl for granted in anyway, Sairaorg would be the one who'll be gunning him.

 _*Slap!*_

"You pathetic no good knight! How dare you come back empty handed!"

Dante grin disappeared from his face as of Sairaorg's threatening atmosphere as the sound of a slap echoed through the the entire front foyer. Both men turned towards the direction of the slap where they noticed Nercodsir and his gang all ganging up at one of their servants who was knock to the ground by a slap.

The terrified servant was young boy right around fifteen years old with emerald green eyes and long messy black hair. He was dressed dirty ragged clothes and bare foot. Dante noticed a recently burned slap mark on the servant's cheek.

"B-But ma-master... I-I tried. I really tried my best to get a contract from the c-client, but... I-I..."

"No buts! It's been months since I was considerate enough to save your life and this is how you repay me? Giving me nothing more than failure and disappointment!?" The King of the servant kicked his servant right into his chest. "You were worth a mutation piece damnit! How could a sore loser like worth so much?"

 _'Mutation Piece?'_ Hearing that got Dante's attention. He was fully aware that there were other students in the school that also possess Mutation Pieces beside himself. But the only ones he knew who had one were Sairaorg and Rias.

With that said, Dante looked carefully at the king who reincarnated his Knight carefully. He was young man around Nercodsir's age with slick blonde hair and shining golden eyes. he was dressed fancy robes similar to the ones Dante wore, but in green and gold. Dante was able to recognized him as Flavuur Asmoday, the high class devil from the Asmoday clan that's ranked king.

 _'Weird. I never thought someone as idiotic as Flavuur posses the traits to recieve a Mutation Piece.'_

Flavuur stopped his assault on his servant as he noticed that pair of wondering eyes that should mind their business. When he looked at the culprit, he noticed Dante looking at his direction. more directly his servant with knee interest.

"What the hell are you looking at?" From the frustrated look Flavuur had, Dante couldn't help but to grin yet again. He never liked Flavuur or anyone within Nercodsir's group ever since he enrolled into this school.

"Nothing really. Just I took something consideration."

"Oh yeah? What's that."

"Oh nothing much except that if you took you a Mutation Piece to reincarnate that someone as pathetic as your knight, I wondered if you're all that powerful as you seemed."

"What?" Flavuur snapped. His body began to emit ominous aura from his body as magic circles appeared on the palm of each hand. "What did you say punk? Are you calling me weak?"

"Hey you said it. Not me." Dante is trying his best to keep his composure. Even though he's facing death's row in front of him, he can't let his emotion to get the best of him. Everyone in Nercodsir's group all come from households that are ranked King and part of the Great King Faction. If he does assault anyone of them, this would conflict with him with the higher ups of the Great King Faction. He maybe friends with Sairaorg, the heir of both the Bael and Great King Faction, but since neither one of Necrodsir's group or their parents are fond of Sairaorg, its only putting another target on Dante's back.

"Flavuur stop." Nercodsir put his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "This isn't worth your time or effort. Forget it."

"But Nercodsir!" Flavuur turned around to Nercodsir, ready to give him a reason why he should just kill Dante, but when he looked his leader in his eyes, Flavuur became petrified in fear.

Dante couldn't breathe as the pressure coming from Nercodsir became tense. For a second Dante couldn't understand what's going till he detected something within the atmosphere coming from Nercodsir. He noticed demonic energy within that pressure. Realizing this, Dante noticed that magic circle on Flavuur's palm began to diminished in thin air. Dante glanced back at Flavuur, who Dante sensed no longer posses any trait of demonic energy.

 _'What's going on here? What is this pressure Nercodsir giving off and what the hell happened to Flavuur? It's like his powers just vanished?'_ Dante staggered back as his felt the air around turning thin and head getting light headed. He put his hands on his neck and began to hyperventilate. Dante feel on his knees, beginning to choke on his last breathe.

"Dante! Are you alright?" Sairaorg rushed over towards Dante and put his hand on Dante's shoulder, only for him to jerk it off. "Dante?"t

Sairaorg looked at the side of Dante's face and noticed a fiery red iris color in his eyes. He began to noticed a red aura enveloping around his friend's body, taking the shape of horse's head.

 _'A Horse?'_ Sairaorg couldn't understand what's happening with Dante's body. He was aware that Dante was born weak and have below demonic energy, but right now, he sensed that Dante was giving off a power level far greater than anybody in entire school. There was also something he picked within the red aura Dante was giving off. He was giving a vibe of hostility and vile. And was all directed towards Nercodsir.

But before Sairaorg could even say do anything, something emerged from Dante's lower back. What came out was a large reddish tentacle-like tail. Dante's sclera turned black as the shade of red in his eyes turned brighter. Two more tails appeared from Dante's back and swerve around uncontrollable.

 _'Wait this is...'_ Sairaorg has heard stories about the powers that the Extra Demon Clans possessed. Some just bear great amount of demonic energy like Sirzechs's queen Grayifa, while some possessed unique traits and abilities that belong to a certain clan. And out of all of the Extra Demon Clans that survived both the Great War and the civil war against the 72 Pillars, the Pruflas household posses a powerful traits that rival the Bael's Power of Destruction. The Mark of Cain.

Name after the curse God of the Bible placed on Cain, the first born son of Adam and Eve, who killed his younger brother Abel and committed the first murder in the world. According to legend the Mark of Cain was mean to be curse to those who tried to murder Cain, who's punishment to leave with a scar that God of the Bible has left on Cain's face for the rest of his life.

Or it was written. There was more to the curse that wasn't told in the bible and those who knew it were the three factions of the Biblical mythology. What many didn't know about the Mark of Cain was that it wasn't curse, but a gift granted given to God to Cain. A gift that drove Cain to insanity and turned him into a devil, creating the house of Caim of the 72 Pillars.

During the early years of the old devil society, the a member of the House of Caim left her household and married off to the head of the Pruflas Clan, which the Mark of Cain was pasted down to the future generation of the main household, much the members of Caim household's dismay. When the war broke out between the three biblical factions, the house of Caim were the first of the main households fall to extinction. With all of the members of Caim household dead and none of them had the chance to breed their bloodlines with other races, the house of Caim had truly became an extinct household while the House of Pruflas now claiming the Mark of Caim to their themselves as their new signature trait.

Sairaorg has seen the power of the Mark of Cain throughout the Dante's father's matches in the Rating Games. The power that mark contained the ability to construct the user's demonic energy to construct predatory organ and functions as their weapon and claws. Sairaorg as seen Dante's father used the Mark to form wings, blades, claws like tails, and even full scale medieval armor against his opponents.

"What the hell?" Flavuur began to panicked after seeing the red blood color tentacles emerging from Dante's back. "Get away from me!" Flavuur quickly shrugged Nercodsir offed his shoulder, making the pressure Necodsir was giving off disappeared, be he fired a blast of demonic energy at Dante, only for him to easily deflect away with one of his tentacles.

"No... way..." Flavuur made a face of disbelief as the tip of all three tentacles plunged their tips directly at his abdominal. Flavuur tried to flee, but one of the tentacles changed it course and grabbed his grabbed his calf and lifted him up off the ground. Flavuur's back slammed into the ceiling and fell off. almost hitting the ground till one of the tentacles pierced through his abdominal. Flavuur coughed out blood as the the tentacle pulled itself out from his abdominal and the other two respectively stabbed him repetitively.

"S-Stop it! I-I'm dying! I-I'm going to die!" Flavuur shrieked for his life as he watched his own blood coming from the abdominal spattered throughout the entire foyer and on the to the students, who were watching this terrified. "I'm going to fucking die!"

Both Sairaorg and Nercodsir quickly snapped out of their trance of bewilderment. Quickly realized that situation on hand, and both men looked at one another. Both nodded at one another, knowing what they need to do. Nercodsir created a magic circle and pointed directly at Dante.

Dante took noticed of this and hissed at Nercodsir. The memories of Al-mir'aj incident flashed into Dante's mind. Remembering how Eve's parent shoved him out to save him and Eve from getting attack and seeing that Nercodsir's palm smoking, indicating he was the one responsible for killing Eve's parent. More raged began to build within Dante as he began to compare the death of Eve's parent to his own.

All the tentacles stopped their assault at Flavuur, dropping him into the ground. All three tentacles pointed directly at Necrodsir as his charged his attack. Nercodsir fired a large orb of demonic energy directly at Dante. Dante's tentacle got into its way, ready to knock out away, but the the Dante's tentacle made contact with orb, it burst into tiny puddles of red liquid spattered everywhere in the foyer. Two more orbs were quickly fired directly at Dante. Both tentacles quickly wrapped themselves around Dante, acting as the shield as the orbs hit them and destroyed them in the process.

Dante became fazed, shocked to see his all his tentacle to be destroyed by the Nercodsir's attack. Dante was going to retaliate back by creating more tentacles to use against Nercodsir and killing for once and for all. But before he could do anything, he felt a strong struck him a cross his face, knocking him through the wall and landed outside.

Dante got back up, struggling to maintain his balance. He staggered his away back to the school through he whole he was knocked through, but before he could entered, Sairaorg came out with his right hand grasped into a fist. Still fazed from the sudden blow he received, Dante didn't defend himself as Saiarorg delivered numerous amount of punches to his face and body till he got knocked out.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

"Ouch..." Dante woke up in the hospital room. His head felt groggy and his body felt completely fatigued. Whenever he tried to move a single muscle, it stung so much that Dante felt his body was stunted by horde of bees. With his head light headed and confused, Dante couldn't exactly remembered how or why he was in the hospital. "Why the hell am I doing here?"

"My Lord!" Dante heard loud footsteps in the hallway rushing towards his hospital room. Mustering the rest of the strength he had, Dante turned his head to the side of the door, where Bernadette rushed in all worried and out of breath. "Lord Dante! Are you alright my king? Are you hurt per chance? Are hungry? Do you need something to do?" She rushed over towards the bed while she began to ambushed Dante with multiple redundant questions.

"No... I'm fine." Dante assured her. Dante tried his best to get up, but he felt a sharp pain in his body and his head, forcing himself to laid back down. "Bernadette, forgot what I said before. There is something I do need from you. Can you tell how did I end up here?"

"Eh? You don't remember?"

"Remember what?"

"Well according to Lord Rugider, I heard you were in a fight."

"A fight?" The last thing Dante could even remember was leaving his classroom and speaking with Sairaorg regarding Ravel Phenex. What could have transpire to him getting into a fight? And with who? Did he fought against Sairaorg? It was possible. Sairaorg knew that Dante was up to something the moment he realized that he could used Ravel's affection to his advantage.

 _*Knock, Knock*_

"Excuse me." An elderly man with black hair and purple eyes knocked the door before coming into the room. "Are Dante Pruflas per chance?"

"Ah yes." Dante nodded. "And you are?"

"My name is no importance for you to know." The elderly man said. "But let's just say I'm someone who have an important position in your school."

 _'Important position? Is he the superintendent or something?'_ Dante wondered as the elderly man approached him.

"You've made quiet a ruckus at the school foyer." The elderly man began to chuckle as if he's taking Dante's case too nonchalantly. "Because of it, many of the higher-ups want to expelled and even to the point executed for your actions."

"Executed?" Dante raised his back off his bed surprised. "Wait. What exactly happened at the school foyer. And who the hell did I fight against that everyone want to me dead for?"

"You don't remember?" The elderly man put his hand on his chin, examining the confuse and lost expression on Dante's face. "Oh now I see. Sairaorg must have hit so hard that you must have forgotten everything that happened."

 _'Sairaorg? So I did fought him because of the Ravel_ _situation?'_ Dante wondered as he continued to hear out the elderly man, who's ready to explain everything to Dante regarding the incident.

"Well according to the witnesses who were there, you assaulted violently attacked Flavuur Asmoday and nearly killed him to death." The elderly man confessed. "The poor brat has suffered through a lot of blood lost and is currently traumatized from this experience."

 _'Flavuur? The guy from Nercodsir's group?'_ Dante vaguely remembered seeing Nercodsir's group, but why did he get into a fight with them and how did he almost killed Flavuur? Everyone in Nercodsir's gang are children from noble families that are ranked king, who said to possess vast amount of demonic energy. Even with his training Dante was worked on since his parent's funeral, he was no where close of beating someone with high level of demonic energy.

"Apparently to some of the students went out of control." The elderly man continued. "You became blinded with rage and was devoured by your own powers that almost put everyone in the school endanger. Because of that, many people want you expelled from the school, not allowed to compete in the rating games, and even forfeit your Evil Pieces, your status as high class devil, and all of your remaining possessions back to the government."

 _'You got to be kidding me.'_ Dante clicked his tongue and tightened his hand into a fist. This is what he feared the most if he did got involved with Great King Faction. He knew that if he messed up badly, the Great King Faction will take this opportunity and tried to ruin for the rest of his life. What pissed Dante even more so was the fact he doesn't remember assaulting Flavuur at all.

Seeing the young Extra Demon with a look of discontent and his queen looking all worried and concerned, the elderly man let out a sly smile on his face. "I know it seemed that you're in a weak and fragile position to change the higher ups mind, there is a way to receive amnesty and keep your status as king and your permanent record unharmed during your time in school."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Dante asked.

"Well Pruflas, you and peerage must compete in the Rating Game match against your school's top student in your grade. And that's none other than Necrodsir Belial. Also not only you'll be fight against Nercodsir and his peerage, but you'll also face against the other children who greatly affiliated with Flavuur Asmoday and Nercodsir along their peerages too."

* * *

 **Well this is where the chapter is going to end. I initially was going to end this chapter where Dante was going to start the fight with Nercodsir and his gang, and intially and going to have this story finished in five chapters, but after reevaluating everything, this arc is going to be six chapters (With this being the third) and going to slow down pace by a bit.**

 **Now for some fun and trivia. Brunhilde is in fact a well known Valkyrie in the Norse Mythology and has been interpret as the star cross lover of Siegfried, who ends up with the Gudrun, the woman responsible for ruining the relationship between the two, who also the sister of the man who Brunhilde ends up marrying to in one interpretation. There is multiple interpretation regarding Brunhilde and her relationship with Siegfried, and with DxD universe's being vague on mythology as a whole (in my opinion anyways), you can say that anyone one could be the real thing. And yes, Brunhilde did bear Siegfried's daughter, who turned out to be Alsaug of Norse mythology.**

 **In this version of my story, Bernadette is the descendant of Brunhilde and Siegfried, making her a descendant of Alsaug and also be a distance relative to the Hero Faction Siegfried, who will be the descendant of Siegfried and Gudrun, the woman who stole Siegfried from Brunhilde, who also bear Siegfried two children, who are Siegfried the second and Svanhildr, the beautiful daughter of the two. And Note since I'm more into creativity as now, there might be an arc where both relatives will fight for the owner of Gram or maybe fight where Bernadette might have the Dragon Spear Downfall armor against Siegfried and his Demonic Sword, especially with Gram.**

 **Also earlier ago I wrote about Bernadette being the reincarnation and briefly explained about what it meant to be someone's reincarnation. Well if you're confused just compare this to the reincarnation explained in the Naruto series. In the Naruto series reincarnation can be connected to the Conservation of energy, where energy can't be created or destroyed.**

 **This is expressed when the series explained that when one person died their chakra is passed down to a new vessel. Naruto and Sasuke were the current reincarnation of the sons of the Sage of the Six Paths. Interesting enough, the sons of the Sage of the Six Paths were also the ancestor of the clans of that Naruto and Sasuke come from respectively. From this idea, I decided to make Bernadette not only the descendant of Brunhilde, but her living reincarnation, which not only add more depth into her character, but will play a factor into her development and power up.**

 **Speaking of Bernadette, in the first chapter (I believed) of the series, I revealed that Dante has a resemblance to Noctis Lucis Caelum from Final Fantasy XV. Bernadette has a resemblance of Freezing's character Tizana Ferrari of the Valkyrie Squard (Get the pun and reason why I chose her? :D). As of now, she doesn't have the developed, voluptuous body she does in the manga and is a bit shorter and petite.**

 **And speaking of Dante, I need to explain more about his father's signature trait, the Mark of Cain. The Mark of Cain is named from the curse in the Bible and can be consider as this story's own Kagune of Tokyo Ghoul, but unlike Tokyo Ghoul, where each ghoul can own at one to two max different types of Kagune, Dante and his father's clan can generate all forms of Kagune and even Kakuja, depending on the amount of demonic energy they posses. You seen the Kagune that Kaneki has in this chapter, but as Dante developed his powers in the series, you'll see new forms that haven't appeared in the actually manga, well yet anyways. I'm slow writer compare to the original writer of Tokyo Ghoul, who updates his story once a week.**

 **Also note that the Mark of Cain has been updated into Dante's profile. And speaking of Profile, I'm creating one for Bernadette right before the next chapter. I'll be creating personal profile for all the members in Dante's peerage on my forum of Devil of the Apocalypse.**

 **Now time for the preview of the next chapter of DOTA:**

 **Dante and Bernadette has a month to prepare before their match against Nerocdsir and his gang's peerage. But with their numbers against them, it's up to Rias, Rudiger, Sairaorg, and Sona to helped their friends in the time of need, but could they pulled off a month in training in time to prepare against the match that could seal the young king and queen's fate?**

 **Next time in Devil of the Apocalypse: A Valkyrie's training**

 **Bernadette: Can I actually do it? Can I actually fulfill the role of being your queen?**


	5. Antebellum

**_Hey everybody! Sorry that it took me so long for me to finish this chapter. Now that I'm back in school and have work, plus the fact this chapter was difficult to do since it had a lot of things for me to write about, it took longer than suspected to be. But now it's complete. I don't own anything but the characters. Read, follow, favorite, and review :D_**

 ** _Note: It hasn't been proof read, I'll check tomorrow for some spelling errors._**

* * *

 ** _Life 04: Antebellum_**

 _"Stop it! No! Let me go!"_

 _Bernadette woke up in a mysterious room with her arms and legs strapped to an operation table. She struggling to break free from the metal straps that contain her, but no valid. She cried and begged to be released, but the people in the room laughed._

 _"What are you trying to say Bernadette? Don't you want to be perfect?" A man walked up to Bernadette with a pair of pliers in his hand. Bernadette couldn't see the face of the man, which was covered in darkness, but he was dressed in elegant white clothing and had light blue hair that floats behind him with two small bangs. He also had three dark blue jewels on his forehead and golden earrings._

 _He pointed the pliers directly at Bernadette and making them snipped as he leaned them closer towards her. "You're going to become our greatest weapon. You're going to become the key to our future. You're going to be the key to my Ragnarok."_

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"Bernadette!" Bernadette woke up all rattled and terrified to a familiar white decorated ceiling. Her body was covered with sweat and she's breathing heavily as if she was out of breathed. She turned her head to see Dante standing with haggard and concern eyes on the side of her bed.

 _'Huh? This is...'_ Bernadette quickly looked around the room she was in and realized it was none other than her own bedroom. She put a hand through hand, trying to see if she can feel her own sweaty skin to make sure she wasn't dreaming. After making she was truly awake, Bernadette let out a sigh of relief before she looked guilty as she looked over her king.

"I'm sorry." She adverted her eyes away from Dante and into her lap and clutched her hands on to the pink nightgown she was dressed in.

"For what?" Dante sat down on the edge of Bernadette's bed with his back turned towards Bernadette. "You haven't done anything wrong Bernadette."

"Don't say that. I've been causing you trouble ever since I've became you queen. Don't you remembered the night tremors I used to have during my first week here?"

Dante couldn't forget about them even if he wanted to. It began on the first night Bernadette became a devil and lived under Rudiger's residence. Bernadette became very seclusive around Dante and Rudiger to the point where a single touch would cause her to have a massive panic attack for no good reason. Not only that, but she wouldn't even speak to them or eat anything till her hunger got the best of her. But it wasn't till that one night that everything changed.

 ** _~Flashback~_**

 _"Stop it! Please make it stop!" Dante heard a sharp cry coming from the room a cross the hall. Soon the air around him began to smell like smoke, which immediately made him jumped out of bed. He quickly ran out from the room, where he noticed the door a cross from his room fuming out smoke._

 _"Bernadette!" Dante rushed over and quickly knocked the door down to see Bernadette laying on top of her bed engulfed in flames. She's still asleep and her body unharmed, but the expression she had on her face looked like she was in pain and her body was trembling like she's shaking in fear._ _Without taking a second thought, Dante head straight towards the bed, ignoring the flames that began to burn his clothes and flesh alive._

 _"Bernadette! Awake up!"_

 _"No! Leave me a alone!" Bernadette woke up screaming in agony, which lead the flame to blaze even hotter and more ferocious than before. When she quickly sees her bed on fire, she began to panic. She clawed back to wall scared, unsure what to do. This only caused to spear out further into the room uncontrollable._

 _"Bernadette!" Dante's eye color inadvertently turned fiery red as he proceeded through the fire despite the pain he was in. "Bernadette! It's alright! I'm here!"_

 _"Eh?" Bernadette turned her head toward direction of Dante's voice. She noticed a man she couldn't recognized on fire, which terrified her even more, but that all changed she made eye contact with his fiery red eyes. She couldn't take her eyes off from his like she was under his trance or something. From that the fire began to simmer down to the point where the flames began to die out on its own._

 _Seeing this, Dante believed that his voice reached to her without realizing that his eyes had something to do with it. His eyes turned back to its original sapphire color as his burnt flesh began to replenish back to its original healthily state. With his eyes back to normal, Bernadette snapped out from her trance and that not only that her room was no longer on fire, but the man on fire, who she believed was after her, has disappeared. She noticed Dante, who looked greatly relieved and have his clothes badly burned._

 _Dante reached his hand over Bernadette, wanting to bring her under his arms, but stopped in fear of Bernadette's Haphephobia acting up. Bernadette's body began to quiver as her eyes began to get watery. She hurtled straight onto Dante and cried her heart out onto his chest. Shocked and confused by this, it took a while for Dante to realized what just occurred and regain his senses. With the fire out and Bernadette no longer in harm or even scared of being touched him, Dante wrapped his arms around her back, securing her that everything is going to be alright._

 ** _~Flashback End~_**

"Well at least this time you're not losing control of your own powers." Dante noted. He thought back of that fateful night. Rudiger left to attend a last minute meeting, leaving Bernadette and Dante alone with the servants, so he wasn't there or was informed of the incident till he came back. When he learned of what happened, he checked Bernadette's status regarding her sealed powers and realized that Bernadette's sealed powers weren't leaking out, but she subconsciously ended up using her demonic energy due to her suffering through post stress disorder during her time in Asgard.

Seeing this as a problem, both Dante and Rudiger decided it were best to seal up even Bernadette's demonic energy she received by becoming a reincarnated devil till she over her symptoms of PSTD. Bernadette has experience through multiple night terrors for many nights where Dante had to wake her up repetitively to the point where Dante had to share the same room with her. Until recently Bernadette hasn't experience any unpleasant flashback or night terrors for two weeks.

"That's because you completely sealed off my demonic energy after the first incident." Bernadette argued. "I haven't had an episode for weeks and for moment I thought that I was done with them till tonight. If you undid the seal beforehand, I would have burned the entire castle down to ashes."

"Don't speak like that. I know eventually you will learned to control your powers. Because..." Dante ended up cutting himself up. He didn't want to continue speaking any further than that and Bernadette knew why.

Earlier this day Dante charged with assault for nearly killing a student of the Great King Faction on school grounds. The higher ups of the Great King Faction are outraged by this and wanted retribution by taking everything from Dante, that includes, his status, his parent's land that he'll one day he'll inherit, and even his Evil Pieces, which includes Bernadette.

When Dante first heard the news, he was completely devastated and helpless. There wasn't anything he could have done to explain his actions or try to convince the old devils that it was an accident till mysterious man from school's administration appeared and gave him an alternative. Dante and the members in his peerage must compete in a Rating Game Match against his school's elite top student and his peerage, along with friends that he and the victim associated with.

The top elite student Dante is going to face is none other than Nercodsir of his peerage, along with his gang and their peerages. Their gang are consist of members of the other surviving household that are ranked "King" within the 72 Pillars, excluding the Bael clan. With Flavuur of the Asmoday household out too, that leaves four households that includes Beleth, Belial, Paimon, and Purson. That means Dante will have to face four kings and their peerages, which at most will be 48 people to battle against.

With only Bernadette by his side and their lack of power, Dante wondered if he could actually pulled fight off against Nercodsir and their gang. They have only a month before match between him and the Great King Faction commence. He received word that Sairaorg, Sona, and Rias are going to assist him beforehand, but why does he have a feeling underneath his heart that everything isn't going to turn out just fine.

"Well get some sleep. We have busy day tomorrow." Dante got off the bed. Right before he took his first step out the room, Dante felt Bernadette leaned her body on his back. "Bernadette?"

"Stay." It wasn't a request to Dante. It sounded more like a demand. "Stay with me tonight. Please?"

Dante could feel Bernadette trembling on his back. She was scared. Dante's wasn't sure if it was the episode she experienced, the match against Nercodsir and his gang, or even both, but he knew that he couldn't leave Bernadette on his own.

"Fine. I'll stay. But only till you've completely fall asleep." Or that's what Dante initially thought. Within the next day, Dante woke up in Bernadette's room with Bernadette's head comfortably sleeping on his chest.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

Dante and Bernadette waited outside at the castle's courtyard. Both of them were dressed in proper training attire with Dante dressed in a white jersey and black track pants while Bernadette had her hair tied up into a ponytail and dressed in a similar white jersey as Dante's and gym shorts.

Three magic circles soon appeared in front of the couple. Each one of those magic circles had its distant color. The first one was navy blue, another was crimson red, and the last one was purple violet. Two people were summoned out from each magic circle before it dispersed into thin air, except for the crimson red one, which summoned three people.

Bernadette recognized each individual that came out from the magic circle. The one that came out from the navy blue magic circle were Sona Sitri and her queen Tsubaki Shinra. The ones that came out from the violet magic circle was Sairaorg Bael and his queen Kuisha Abaddon, and the last pair that came out from the magic circle were none other than Rias Gremory and her queen Akeno Himejima, however there was another girl that appeared with Rias Gremory. She was a small white hair girl with hazel eyes that Benadette never seen before. Was she a new member of Rias's peerage?

"Oh good. Everyone's here." Everyone turned their heads towards Rudiger, who just showed up with his queen standing by his side. "Greeting everyone. You must be all Dante's friend and classmate." Both he and his queen preformed a quick bow towards his guest. "My Dante, I never imagine you being friends with such influential people."

Bernadette wasn't entirely sure either or not Rudiger did knew about people Dante did associate with, but he was right about one thing. The people gathered around here were in fact individuals with authoritative backgrounds. According to Dante, both Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri are both relatives to the current Satans that governed the current devil society while Sairaorg is the current heir to the Great King Faction, which governed under the Four Satans. It's still astounded Bernadette to know that Dante is heavily associated with these people and apparently these same people are her "friends."

"I'm assuming that Bernadette has met with everyone here before?" Rudiger asked.

"Yes." Dante nodded. "Bernadette has met everyone here beforehand."

It happened sometime after Bernadette opened her heart out towards Dante. Her encounter with Dante's friends happened after one of her sessions with physical therapy. This flabbergasted and overwhelmed the former Valkyrie. She was force to met with a group of strangers, but after spending some time with his friends and their queens, she felt comfortable to be around them. Well at least with Dante around, she felt comfortable with them.

"So how are we going to do this?" Dante asked, referring to his and Bernadette's training.

Rudiger looked at the clipboard he brought in his hands. "We'll basically split up into two groups. You'll be training under me, prince Sairaorg, and Princess Sona while Bernadette will be under the tutelage of my queen, Princess Rias, and the rest of the other queens."

"Eh? I-I'm going with L-Lady Gremory?" Bernadette looked agitated .

"Yeah. Is there a problem?" Rudiger asked, taking his eyes off the clipboard and straight towards Bernadette. Everyone soon laid there eyes directly at the young mutated queen, who felt very uncomfortable with the unnecessary attention she's receiving.

"A-Ah... W-Well..." Bernadette began to stuttered as her legs to began to shake. Bernadette began to feel nervous as her face turned red. Dante could easily tell that if everyone continued to look at Bernadette with the same look that hawks have on their prey , she was going to pass out completely mortified.

"Bernadette, if you feel uncomfortable with this, Rias can help me with my training." Dante suggested.

"Eh? N-No way!" Bernadette strongly protested. She became even more distressed than before. "I-I'm fine with this! Really!"

Even though she assured it, no one seemed convinced by this. They could clearly tell that Bernadette wasn't comfortable with this arrangement, but decided not to pursuit any further than this. They clearly saw that Bernadette rather prefer to take the prior arrangement rather than the latter Dante suggested.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

 _"Haha? Is that so?"_

 _"I'm serious. You should've been there."_

 _Bernadette hasn't seen many sides Dante expressed. Maybe because she only knew him for a couple weeks and the only side that she saw from Dante were his impatient, but tolerable side during her early days as a devil and his relieved side when Bernadette lost control of her powers._ _She had seen Dante smiled before a couple times, but never like this before._

 _It happened right after her session in physical therapy, where Dante decided to invite his friends and their queens over for a cup of tea and introduced them to Bernadette. Bernadette was initially against this, but since she didn't have the courage to say anything, she went along with this and tried her best to keep a strong front for Dante's sake._

 _It went better than Bernadette suspected it to be. She rarely spoke and mostly listened to what others had to say. It was fine till she noticed a refreshing smile that Dante never had before. It was the first time she saw him enjoying himself. And it was because of her, Rias Gremory. Every moment Rias speaks to Dante or vice versa, Bernadette always noticed the change of attitude Dante has only around her and not to Sairaorg or Sona Sitri. Dante acted more flirtatious and light hearted towards Rias and no one else. Why was it?_

 _"So Bernadette, what do you think of everyone?" It was after the tea party and Dante has brought Bernadette to her room and placed her on to her bed, where he began tuck his queen and say good night._

 _"W-Well... It was fun." Bernadette answered the best she could. "B-But..."  
_

 _"But what?" Dante asked, raising a brow._

 _"A-Ah... I-It's... Lady Gremory." Bernadette confessed scared, fearing what Dante would do to her if he took this offensively. She put her hands up to her face as an act to defend herself, but after a second of nothing happening, Bernadette put her arms down to see Dante finishing tucking her in to her bed._

 _"What about her?" Dante asked nonchalantly, much to Bernadette's surprise._

 _"Y-You're close..."_

 _"Like intimidate close?" Dante responded, which Bernadette nodded back. "Really? Huh. I actually had a crush on her the first time I saw her. "_

 _"R-Really?" Bernadette felt a sharp pain in her chest like a knife just stabbed her in the heart after hearing that. "D-Do... y-you still... l-like her?"_

 _"No... Not anymore." Dante said, sounding a bit depressed when he said it. He didn't looked it, but Bernadette could tell that Dante sadden that he couldn't confessed his feelings to Rias._

 _So why couldn't he? She desperately wanted to ask more about this, but hesitated in the last second. Maybe because of her status and rank, she couldn't interfere or get involve with the personal life of a high-class and pure-blooded devil like Dante. Or was she didn't muster enough courage to ask why? In the end, Bernadette didn't get the chance to continue conversation, which the ended the moment Dante finished tucking her into her bed and leaving the room._

 ** _~Flashback ended~_**

 **~Bernadette's Morning Training: Physical training~**

Ever since Bernadette completed her physical therapy and was able to walk properly again, she gained a great passion for running. She enjoyed the rush that comes with it. She loves the adrenaline and how the fast her heart beats made her more alive than ever. Today, however, was an exception. When Bernadette heard that her morning training will start with a morning jog, she was ecstatic. A morning run is what she needed to clear her thoughts with all pressure that came with the rest of her training and her master's rigged Rating Game match against the friends of the boy he assaulted.

"Are you ready Bernadette?" After doing some stretches within the tracks located not far off from the estate, Bernadette got into a starting position and smiled. She turned towards Rias, who stood a side on the tracks with her servants and carried a flare gun in her hands.

"Ready!" Bernadette responded eagerly, ready to go.

"Alright!" Rias raised the pistol she had up in the air. "Ready! Set! Go!" Rias pulled the trigger and sound of the gun firing echoed into the air while a cloud of smoke came out from the tip of the pistol.

Bernadette dashed immediately after the gun was fire and did a quick lap around the track under a few seconds. After the first lap was complete, Bernadette began to slow down and began to pace herself. Believing that she was going a good and moderate pace, Bernadette let her guard down. Big mistake. When she was almost made through the finished line, a bolt of thunder came from the sky and strike in between Bernadette and the finished line.

"Gah!" Bernadette was blown away by the collision of the thunder making contact with the track and landed on her bottom. She looked up in the cloudy sky to noticed Akeno dressed in a shine maiden outfit with hands cover in yellow static of electricity. "M-Ms. Akeno!?"

"Ara? Ara? What are you sitting around Bernadette? If don't move, a bolt of thunder might get struck you." Bernadette noticed the sadistic smile on Akeno's face and realized she wasn't going to stop. Specially when she pointed her static cover finger directly at her.

 _'Oh no!'_ Bernadette quickly move aside from the spot she sat in before a bolt of thunder struck down. She quickly got up and began sprinting as bolts of thunder began to chase after her.

"L-Lady Gremory! A-Are go-going to allow this?" Bernadette turn her head towards Rias, who passively observing these events and began noting them into a clipboard.

"Of course." Rias said without taking her eyes from the clipboard. "It's necessary for you to learn to dodge your enemies attack from all angles. But since its too soon to do that, we're just going to have to play a little cat and mouse game. Right Akeno? "

"Ufufufu. Right Rias!" Akeno answered erotically.

"Eh?" Bernadette's jaw dropped. She became appalled from what Rias just said and trip on the ground. She looked up in sky and noticed a bolt of thunder heading straight towards her face.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

 ** _~Bernadette's Afternoon Training: Technique Training~_**

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Rias asked concerned.

"Y _-YEzzz!_ " Bernadette's body shivered abruptly like she just had a quick seizure.

Not that long ago Bernadette has suffered through an incident where she was struck by thunder in the tracks. With the purchase of Phenex Tears, Bernadette made a quick recover with her physical injuries, though still feel has a quick muscle spasms, which made her look like she was suffering through a seizure time to time.

After the incident in the tracks and her recovery from it, Bernadete's next training took place in a Dojo within the castle. Bernadette patiently sat on the floor with Rias, Akeno, and the white hair girl while all three of them waited for the instruction of the afternoon lesson to arrive. The wooden slide opened and young Japanese girl with long black hair and dark brown eyes entered dressed in a Bogu, a Japanese Kendo suit, and held two wooden katana in her hands and a helmet underneath her armpit. Bernadette looked into the black hair girl's strict eyes and realized that this training will under Sona's Queen, Tsubaki Shinra.

With Tsubaki entering the room, Bernadette stood up immediately before she did a quick muscle spasm. She quickly cleared her head by shaking her head and focus on the task on hand as Tsubaki handed one of the Katanas to her. Tsubaki backed up, creating distance between her and Bernadette.

"Alright Bernadette. Today we're going to teach technique methods through swordsmanship. Through this lesson you'll learn why you shouldn't underestimate technique types and grasp the type of fighting style they have. Are you ready?"

"Yes." Bernadette nodded.

"Alright. Get ready!" Tsubaki put on her helmet and got into fight stance with her katana. Seeing Tsubaki's posture, Bernadette quickly mimic the same position and held her katana the same way Tsubaki did. "Set! Go!"

Tsubaki went straight towards the attack. She dashed forward, vanishing from sight. Bernadette panicked, unsure where her instructor disappeared to. She felt an uncanny breeze within the Dojo and detected the presence from behind. She turned around to see Tsubaki standing with the tip of her katana pointing directly at Bernadette's neck. Bernadette gulped the saliva inside her mouth before dropping her katana into the ground and raising her hands up in surrender.

"Amazing." Bernadette murmured in astonishment right before her muscle spasm took control of her body again and fell on the ground.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

 ** _~Berndatte's Evening Training: Magic Practice ~_**

With her morning exercises endings earlier than supposed to be and the afternoon training ending in disaster due her muscle spasm acting up and Tsubaki easily attacked and exposed all of her openings, Bernadette had one more chance to redeem herself as a queen and her ancestor's reputation as a Valkyrie with magic. This should be her forte. After all Valkyries are demi-gods and they should possess magic talent in their veins.

The evening training took place at an area where it looked like an outside gun range. Bernadette sat down at one of the picnic table with Rudiger's queen and the girls from the previous exercises, waiting her for next instructor to show up. A fiery red magic circle with the insignia that belong to Dante's household appeared. Realizing that Dante was coming she quickly got out of her seat and quickly fixed herself up before Dante, Rudiger, and Sona Sitri appeared from the magic circle.

"Hey Bernadette." Dante greeted as he walked up to his queen.

"L-Lord Dante! What happen to you?" Bernadette asked as she noticed the appearance her master had. Though his body looked unharmed, Dante's clothes were battered badly and he looked completely filthy. She wasn't sure what kind of training her master had gone through, but it was clear that Dante was going through more difficult and harsher training than Bernadette had.

"Nothing you should worry too much about." Dante assured her as he wiped off some dust he had on the shoulders. "So how have you been on your training?"

"A-Ah well its been fine." Bernadette answered, even though most of it been terrible for her. "So what are you doing here?"

"Well my training had came to end, so I decided to get check on your progress on your training. So how have your instructors been treating you?"

"O-Oh they've treated very nicely." A memory of the morning exercises flashed into Bernadette's mind. The memory of Akeno chasing her with thunder made Bernadette sweat drop and smiled bitterly. "W-Well some of them were at least."

Another magic circle appeared on the ground with the Bael insignia in the center. Sairaorg and his blonde hair queen Kuisha Abaddon.

"Oh good. Everyone's here." Sairaorg said pleased. "Alright then. If you're ready Ms. Bernadette, let's get this final lesson on its way."

"Ah yes. Let's begin." Bernadette nodded.

She turned towards her Kuisha, who separated from her king and took Bernadette out to the field. Dante and the rest of the crew watched passively from the distance as Kuisha began her final lesson.

"Alright Bernadette. I'll be instructor with your magic training. Before we do anything, has your king unsealed portion of your powers?" Kuisha asked.

"Yes." Bernadette nodded her head. "He unsealed my powers prior to my morning's training."

"Alright. Watch me what I'm going to do." Kuisha put her hands together and closed her eyes. A small orb of demonic energy appeared between palms. She reopened her eyes and move her hands apart as the orb got larger. "This here is a orb created by demonic energy, the power source that give devil the power of To use this magic all you need to do is to concentrate and channel your demonic energy into the form your desire it to be. Bernadette, try to concentrate into creating the orb I just made."

"A-Alright." Bernadette put her hands close together and was ready to close her eyes before she took a quick glance at Dante and everyone else. She turned back to Kuisha and closed her eyes. "H-Here goes nothing."

Bernadette began to concentrate and a small fiery red orb appeared in space between her palms. Bernadette opened her eyes and was amazed at her accomplishment.

"I-I did it! Lord Dante! Look!" Bernadette turned towards her master in delight. She then move her hands slowly part, which made the small orb increase it size enough where the orb was big as a basketball and bright as a light bulb. She pulled her arms closer, which made the ball shrink. "Alright I did _zzzt!"_

Everyone gasped as Bernadette went through another seizure like muscle spasm. The orb she created grew astronomically out of control. Bernadette panicked after she gain her senses back and the large orb exploded into a large blaze of fire. Rudiger and his queen quickly created a barrier around everyone while Kuisha created a hole and hid inside. The firing ranch got caught in flames as Bernadette watched appalled from what she has done.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"I-I'm sorry... I-m r-really sorry..." Everyone was brought back into Rudiger's main castle after the magic training fiasco ended in disaster, where Bernadette repeatedly apologized for the incident in the medical office.

"Don't be so hard on yourself Bernadette." Rias said, sitting next to Bernadette. She put her arm around her and pulled her head onto her shoulder. "You tried your best and that what it counts."

"That and we were glad we were able to put the fire in time before it spread." Akeno added playfully, which made Bernadette feel even worse.

"Akeno!" Rias hissed, making Akeno shrugged her shoulder all innocent and coy.

"At least nobody got hurt." Dante said, leaning back on the wall. "Plus Rias is right. Don't let today's failure get the best of you. Just look at me for example. Unlike you, I barely have talent or power at all, but that doesn't stop me right? No it just motivate me to go even farther. And if I know you, which I do, I know you have what it takes to control that power."

"L-Lord Dante..." He was right and she knew it. Bernadette couldn't be here right now if Dante didn't reincarnate her with a Mutation Piece. All the power she possessed are being suppressed by the piece itself and if she did control her powers, she'll be more powerful than her master.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

It was the second day of training. Even though Bernadette should be training with Rias and the rest of the queens back in Rudiger's estate, today's training was being postponed and Bernadette accompanied Dante and Rudiger to a special facility in Astaroth territory. Upon arrive via teleportation circle, everyone arrived at the entrance at large brick building guarded by soldiers that had the symbol of Astaroth written on their uniform.

Rugidger came up to the soldiers guarding the entrance and show them his ID along with Dante's and Bernadette's. After confirming their IDs were legit, the guards stand aside and allow the three of them to entered the building. The three preceded inside the building, where Bernadette noticed the bunch beings of different races residing inside building from humans to mythological creatures. She couldn't believe the number of people residing within the facility.

"Bernadette... Be quiet and be on your best behavior." Dante whispered before continued further into the facility.

Bernadette nodded and remembered back to the conversation she had with Dante and Rudiger the night after their first day of training.

 _ **~Flashback~**_

 _"A trading center?" It was after the evening training, where all of Dante's friends and their queens left Rudiger's estate and Dante invited Bernadette into his room. From there Dante mention of going into somewhere within Astaroth's territory known as the "Trading Center."_

 _"It wasn't known as the trading center when they first created it." Dante revealed. "It was intentionally a place to house low class and reincarnated devils who had lost their Kings from Stray Devils."_

 _Bernadette knew very well what the term "Stray Devils" is. Stray Devils are reincarnated devils who diverted from their masters and gone insane. With cynical and cruel attitude, Bernadette wouldn't blame the servants on turning for enslaving their lives and making them live a miserably. She was fortunate enough to be recruited under Dante's peerage._

 _"But after the existence of the Rating Games and the prides of many destroyed, the facility that was intentionally held for devils who lost their masters, now homed servants of the kings who no longer have interest in the Rating Games." Dante continued. "With facility filled with reincarnated and low class devils that actually have great potential in the Rating Games, many of the other devils decide to trade their pieces and their weak servants for the devils in the facility."_

 _"So why are we going here? Don't tell me you're going to trade me for someone else!?"_

 _"No no!" Dante waved his hand in denial before Bernadette could enter a panic attack. "I'm going to recruit new members into my peerage."_

 _"New members?" Bernadette at first didn't understood Dante's purpose till she remembered that she and Dante were outnumbered by the Nercodsir's gang and their peerages. Even if they train their hearts out, they won't be able to defeat a gang of high-class devils from the Great King Faction and their servants. If they were going to stand a higher chance of surviving they needed to increase their numbers._

 _"So you do have anyone in mind?" Bernadette asked._

 _"Actually I do. I hope you welcome our newest member of with open arms."_

 ** _~Flashback Over~_**

Bernadette continued to observed the reincarnated devils that reside in the trading center. The three of them were escorted by the guards from inside the facility and the group noticed gangs of reincarnated devils divided by their race or Evil Pieces eyeing them. Majority of them looked depressed and lifeless. Bernadette cling on to Dante's arm as she noticed on of the devils that looked identical to an ogre snarled at her and giving her the dirty look.

A group of other reincarnate devils soon gathered towards the group. They reached out towards Dante while the guards quickly shielded him while warding off the reincarnated devils.

"P-Pick me!"

"N-no! I'm better than this freak!"

"I-I'm the worth six pieces!"

"I-I'm very well versed all sorts of magic!"

"Magic!? Bleh! I'm the ideal rook! I'm so strong and sturdy that magic can leave a scratch on me!"

"H-Hey now! I'm the fastest knight in this joint! I'm make circles out of you! "

Judging on the look on their faces, Bernadette knew that these reincarnated devils were desperate to leave the facility. Was it that bad to be here? Is this is where Bernadette going to end up if Dante ended up losing his Rating Game match. She turned towards Dante, who currently holding a poker face. What is her master thinking? Is he fazed on the inside or is he truly nonchalant about this?

The group soon entered a room. Inside the three noticed a large, overweight, ulgy old man dressed in a tight tuxedo and top hat. He sat behind a large desk,with a guard standing on both sides. The man gave out an ugly, suspicious smile toward the trio and eyed directly at Bernadette.

"Oh my... What a cutie..." The mysterious man put his hand on his chin, intrigued with Bernadette's appearance. "Please tell me you're going to hand me that little sweetie over there into our custody?"

Bernadette tighten her grasped around Dante's arm as Dante let out a sigh of annoyance. "Don't be ridiculous. No amount of pieces, money, or artifact would make trade off my queen." Dante declared, narrowing his eyes at the strange man.

The fat tuxedo man frowned bitterly. "Oh I see. Then what business do you have with me, Antonius Zepar?"

Rudiger step up. "Sir Zepar, we're here to claim one the servants that have been transferred here not that long ago."

"Oh really? What kind of servant are you looking? A Rook? A Bishop?" Antonius asked.

"A knight." Dante answered.

Hearing Dante's answered, Antonius snapped his fingers and one of the guards pulled out a catalog and walked up to Dante. He handed to Dante and Dante began to flip through the pages till he stopped a certain page.

"Here. This is the one I want." Dante said, pointing to the picture of the individual he desired.

The guard took back the catalog and placed on Antonius's deck with the page of the knight Dante desired on. Antonius looked at the picture and snapped at his fingers, causing a magic circle to appeared on the ground. The circle flashed up and what appeared was a black hair and emerald eye young boy that looked around fifteen years old dressed in ragged clothes, who looked lost and confused on what just happened.

"W-Where am I? W-Who-" The young boy turned his gaze towards Dante and winced. "Yo-You! I-It's you!" He pointed his finger at Dante, freaking out. "Y-You're the one who a-attacked my king."

 _'King?'_ Bernadette remembered that Dante did send a classmate into the infirmary and was in fact a king. Was this knight the servant of this king? With the tone of his voice and familiarity the knight had with Dante, it might be true.

"D-Do you know what you have done to me? Thanks to you I was sent here to this hellhole!" The young black hair boy charged up to Dante and screamed directly at his face.

"Well isn't this place better than you're time in the Asmoday household?" Dante asked with a provoking smile. "At least here you're not being treated as as badly than you were as Flavuur's knight."

"At there I was well feed and had nice place to sleep!" The boy argued sharply. "Do you have any idea what they served here or type of beds I lived there?"

"You were lucky enough to live such luxury. If it weren't for the fact that you required a mutation piece, Flavuur would have disposed of you a long time ago." Dante countered.

The black boy became silent after hearing that. He knew very well that Dante was right. His king has dropped off some of his old pieces here and he would have done to same to him if it weren't for the fact he required a mutation piece.

"So what did you bring me here then?" The boy asked.

"This." Dante summoned a knight chess piece on his hand and passed onto the black hair boy. "I want you become to join me."

"What?" The black hair boy dropped the piece into the ground and became baffled. "You want me to join your peerage? Are you kidding me?"

"No." Dante said, picking up his knight piece. "You're someone who I want to become my servant."

"Eh? But why? Why do you want me?" The boy asked while pulling his hair back. "Do you know anything about me? I lacked the skills and determination of becoming a knight! You seen heard what Flavuur said about me! I'm useless knight! I can't even get a single contract from my clients!"

"So what?" Dante shrugged. "I don't care if ever get a contract at all. What I care is what made you so valuable to require a mutation piece."

"I-I don't know. Really." Dante could tell from the look in the boy's eye that he was lying. He was hesitant to tell the truth.

"You're lying." Dante said bluntly. "Alright if you're not going to tell me the truth, then how about a proposition then?"

"A proposition?" The black hair boy raised a brow. "What kind of proposition?"

"You probably know by know that I'm currently in a tight position where if don't defeat Flavuur's friends-"

"You mean the Kingsmen?" The black hair boy interrupted unintentionally. "That is what Flavuur and his friends called themselves."

"Alright. If I don't beat the Kingsmen," Dante corrected himself after clearing his throat, "I'll have no choice but to give up custody of everything I own. That includes my inheritance of everything my parents and my Evil Pieces. Since our numbers a small and we don't know much about our enemies' power and abilities, I believe that the likes of you will be very valuable for my team, especially if you required a Mutation Piece."

"So what do I get from this?" The black hair boy asked as he crossed his arms.

Dante let out a sly smirk. "For starters you no longer have to stay here if you join me. Not only that, but I won't take you for granted, mortify you, or even lay my finger on you for questioning me or being low class reincarnated devil. I'll treat you as my equal." Dante put his hand out. "So what do you say, partner?"

"I don't know..." The black hair boy was still hesitant, unsure if he should accept this.

"Oh did I forget to mention that you have the opportunity to kick the Kingsmen's ass?" Dante asked, which grabbed the black hair boy's attention.

"Where do I sign?" The black hair boy asked, grabbing to Dante's hand and shook it. "Oh by the way. I haven't fully gotten your name."

"It's Dante. Dante Pruflas." Dante introduced himself. "And yours?"

"Cid." The black hair replied with a smile on his face. "My name is Cid Rodriguez."

"Well Cid. Let's this be the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

 ** _~DOTA~_**

The days went by faster than anybody has suspected to be. The Rating Game match between Dante's peerage and the Kingsmen was set within seven days. The trio that consist of Dante, Bernadette and Cid had been training none stop ever since Cid agreed to join Dante's peerage. Bernadette went through her training session with Rias and the queens while Dante and Cid trained off with the remaining other kings somewhere else till the end of first half of the month, where the second half focused on cooperation and team work.

Within that second half of the month, Bernadette learned from the kings the art of tactics and strategies. With the information Cid provided about his time as a servant to the Kingsmen, the learned what to suspect at least from their opponents and their peerages. Not long ago the Rating Game council has also provided information regarding the setting of the dimension Dante and the Kingsmen will be battling on and which location they'll be. With that said, the trio began to plan out more ideas to use their surrendering to the fullest as it can be.

"Alright then." Bernadette appeared at the shooting ranch she burned out on her first day of training. Thinking to her first day brought a bitter smile on to Bernadette's face with a sense of guilty for almost burning down everything. It was fortunate enough that everything was back to the way it was before the incident.

Bernadette walked up to the field filled with human shape shooting targets placed everywhere around her. She took a deep sigh and closed her eyes. She spread her hands out and brought them close together as she concentrated. A light orange orb of demonic energy gathered between hands and it quickly ignited into ball of fire. Bernadette opened her eyes and looked down at the fire ball in between her two hands. She slowly expanded the size of the fire ball as she slowly move her hand apart. She quickly made the fireball dispersed into thin air as she clapped her hands together.

She took another deep sigh before spreading her arms and created multiple magic circles into the air. All of them fired multiple tiny fire balls like machine guns towards the human shape shooting targets. Bernadette maneuvered her fire balls towards the direction she desired as the fireballs swerved around the shooting targets and swirled around them till the fire balls around each shooting target back a ring of fire closing in on them. The shooting targets incinerated into smithereens after making contact.

More shooting targets appeared via magic circle and Bernadette retaliated by gathering demonic energy into the tips of her index and middle finger. Bernadette moved her two fingers and a string of magic emerged from the demonic energy on Bernadette's fingertips. Bernadette move the string of magic like a whip and ignited it into a whip of fire. Bernadette used the whip to destroy the shooting target and maneuvered the whip like a gymnast and her ribbon baton.

"Not bad." Bernadette made her flames disappeared from the finger tips as she heard the sound of clapping from the background. She turned around and saw Dante approaching her. "This is definitely more better than you the first time you tried using your powers."

"L-Lord Dante!?" Bernadette's body tensed up as Bernadette herself felt completely mortified to know that her king had observing her from the beginning. "W-What are you doing here?"

"What? This isn't the first time I seen you train with you powers before." Dante brought up.

"I-I know that! I just wanted to know why did came here of all places?" Bernadette clarified with a redder face.

"Oh I came to inform you about the change of roster."

"Change of roster? Do you mean the change of peerage?" It was the only thing Bernadette thought of that made sense. "Did you go back to the trade center to recruit new some other pieces into your team?"

"Kind of." Dante said, waving his hand as a more or else condensation meaning. "A devil that Uncle Rudiger knows personally is trading one of his Bishops into to me and I recruited a new member the very last minute."

Bernadette widened her eyes in surprised of this. "Really? Who are they? D-Do we know them?"

"Of course." Dante nodded. "Let me introduced you to our new pawn."

Dante snapped his fingers and magic circle appeared in front of him. The light of the magic circle flashed as a small creature became materialized with the circle. When the light faded and the magic circle disappeared, a two month old white furred bunny rabbit appeared where the magic circle once stood. Bernadette recognized the unicorn's horn slowly growing from its forehead and fancy pink bow wrapped around its neck.

"Eve!? You reincarnated Eve?" Bernadette gasped as Dante picked up his small pawn from the ground.

Bernadette was very familiar with the horned bunny rabbit. That monstrosity of bunny rabbit has been the snag of Bernadette ever since she became Dante's queen. Whenever she and the Al-mir'aj are alone together, it always acted hostile towards her and always get between her and Dante whenever she got a chance.

"What? It was last minute and Sona was the one to suggest that I should have reincarnated Eve if I stood a longer chance against the Kingsmen." Dante said as stroke back of his former familiar. "Sona said Eve had more potential as a servant rather than a familiar."

Bernadette can vouched for that. The time she has known that wicked rabbit, she witnessed things that Eve has done that seemed surreal for an ordinary rabbit can do. Whenever Bernadette had a chance to spend time with Dante alone, Eve, out of nowhere, ran like a shooting bullet and quickly appears on his lap, which the latter give his time and affection to his pet while being obvious to the fact that Eve is protecting her territory. Bernadette remembered one day when Dante focused on his time on her rather than Eve and she got fed up that she ended up killing a Minotaur she found who knows where and brought its body back to Dante, much to everyone's dismay. Though Eve hasn't portray any magic, its been stated unicorns had magic property within their horns, and since Eve possess a unicorn like horn, Bernadette wouldn't be surprise if Eve possessed talent in magic.

"You know with the skills Eve possessed, she would have been the ideal queen." Dante noted, much to Bernadette's dismay and Eve's delight, which the latter affectionately snugged to her king's chest after hearing that.

 _'Yeah now that you mentioned it...'_

"So if Eve is the one who you recruited into your peerage last minute, who's the king who traded their bishop to you?" Bernadette asked, now changing the subject.

"It's Mephisto Pheles." Dante answered, much to Bernadette's surprised.

Mephisto Pheles was the chairman of Grauzauberer, the wizard's organization where Bernadette was placed after her time in Asgard was over. Though it never been confirmed or talked about, Dante and Bernadette had suspension that Rudiger, who's currently associated with the Gradzauber, went behind Mephisto's back when he allowed Dante to reincarnated Bernadette.

From the time Dante reincarnated Bernadette and now, Mephisto hadn't done anything. So has he decided to act now by trading his Bishop to Dante in the last minute? Was he using his bishop to keep on Bernadette during the Rating Game match?

"For now it's best to get as much help from everyone else as we can." Dante sighed as he put down Eve down on the ground. "We'll keep an eye on this servant and hope for the best."

Dante turned around, ready to leave. Before he could even take a step though, Bernadette tugged on his sleeve. "L-Lord Dante. Wait. There something I need to get off my mind."

"What is it?" Dante turned around to see Bernadette looking nervous and tense.

"W-Well..." Bernadette cleared her throat before she continued on. "L-Look like we've gaining great amount of useful members into your peerage. First Cid, now Eve, and next is this new bishop. Can't believe you were able to gain such people to join your peerage."

"And what about it?" Dante asked, unsure where this conversation is leading to.

"D-Don't you think that all of them are... better then me?" Bernadette asked with a weak smile on her face. "T-Though Cid lacked the power of an attacker, he has more benefit skills that no one have ever seen before and E-Eve the the whole package. A-And I know that we haven't seen this bishop yet, b-but I can't grantee you that bishop will be v-very valuable for you in the Rating Game match a-and against your quest of vengeance on the man of the mask."

"..." Dante struggled not to expressed his emotions as Bernadette continued. He had this conversation with Bernadette sometime after she completed her physical therapy. It wasn't pleasant to talk about, especially since speaking about him gave a bad trip of memory lane. He also had this conversation with Cid, who didn't seemed eager to follow, but decided go anyways since he's enjoying his time as Dante's servant than Flavuur's and in the trading center. If this new bishop decides to stay with Dante, he'll have to to give them the same talk to.

"And there's me. The pathetic girl born with power she's shouldn't have possessed." Bernadette stared at her palm as she created a small flame on the blame of her hand. "I'm nothing more than a ticking bomb ready to go off any second now. Even though we trained so hard through the exercises and mock battles, how we know for certain that I won't freeze up in actually battle, or worse, cause more damage like the night I burned this place down to the ground."

The flame on Bernadette's hand began to diminished as she closed her hand into a fist. She turned away from her master and wrapped her arms around herself as she began to shiver out of fear. "J-Just look at me. I'm all so terrified and wired for some life size game of chess! What do you think what will happened when we confront the man in the mask? I-I don't want to be the one responsible for costing you the chance of avenging your parent, or worst your life! I don't want to be-"

Before Bernadette could even finished, she felt a pair arms wrapped around underneath her chest and a chin rested on top of her head. Bernadette slowly raised her head and rolled her eyes upward to see the black spikes of Dante's bangs.

"I know its scary." Dante murmured. "The feeling of being under pressure for trying not to be the weakest link or trying to disappoint others are weighting on your shoulders too right? I know the feeling far too well." Dante removed his arms on Bernadette and turned her around to face him. Dante put his arms around Bernadette and pulled her body close to his. Bernadette could feel one of Dante's arm wrapped around her waist and his other hand stroking the back of his hand."

"L-Lord Dante?"

"I'm not sure what's going to actually happen in the Rating Games, but I grantee you one thing. I always have your back no matter what." Dante whispered into her ear. "I'll always pick up whenever you need me and protect you from arm and all I need you to do is just believe me."

"L-Lord Dante... I-I don't know." Bernadette's eyes became watery as if she was about to cry. " I-I just don't want to let you down. Just hearing this is giving me more of a burden. I-I don't want to disappoint you."

"You have done more than enough for me." Dante assured her in a soothing tone. "You're willing to put up with my issues and forcing to participate in situations that made you unconformable."

"I-I'm your queen though. I-It's my job to get involve with your problems if I like it or not." Bernadette argued.

"I know. But promise me something Bernadette. Just promise me that as long you believe and have faith on me, never believe that you're liability into my eyes. You put so much time and effort into your training for my sake. You given so much for me... I could never asked for a most loyal servant like you..."

"L-Lord Dante..." Bernadette raised her head and made eye contact with Dante's eyes. The two leaned their face closer and both closed their eyes. Their lips were centimeters from touching one another, but before they two overlaps on another...

"Guah!" Dante leaped up into the air spontaneously, much to Bernadette's shock. The young Valkyrie noticed her king had look of intense pain on his face as he ran back and forth on the field. As Dante crossed through the field in pain, Bernadette noticed something dangling from the back of his pants.

"L-Lord Dante! I think you should turned around!" Bernadette said as she pointed to the back of Dante's pant.

"Eh?" The young king turned towards the back of the pants and noticed a jealous horned bunny rabbit sinking her fangs into his ass. "E-Eve!? What the hell!? Why are you doing this to me!? Get off now! Bad Eve! Bad! You're making daddy very angry!"

As she watched her king struggled to get his former familiar out of biting the back of his pants , Bernadette couldn't help herself but let a laugh at the situation at hand and smiled. The feeling of being a burden was no longer in her heart as she began to feel a sense of security of knowing there was still hope left for her and her beloved king.

 _ **~Grauzauberer~**_

"Ever since I went behind your back and allowed my ward to reincarnate the Valkyrie, I suspected this confrontation between the two of us to happen, Mephisto, though I though this conversation would have started sooner rather than later."

"Oh don't be so tense Rudiger. Sure Grauzauberer went into a state of panic after Bernadette was gone, but after learning the truth afterword, we felt relieved that the girl was under you and your ward's care. You know the reason why I gave you a position in my organization is because my personal connection with Bellincione and Bella."

"I know. I've been very grateful ever since I was given this position by them. So tell me Mephisto, so why do you want to act now? Especially since you just said you were fine for the fact that you didn't mind if my ward took Bernadette for himself."

"You mean me trading my Bishop to your ward's team? You know personally how tremendous the Rating Games are in person and I know that you've been helping Bernadette control her powers, however..."

"You fear for the worse if Bernadette does lose control of her powers. That's understandable. So our bishop is there for precautions reasons."

"Unfortunately yes. You ward must think the same too, however I grantee your ward that my Bishop won't be there just to observe. I gave my Bishop explicated instructions to contribute as much as she can with this match. Your ward is going to face dreadful odds within a week."

"I see... Thanks for clarifying everything with me. But before you go, may I ask one question. It's something I needed to get off my chest."

"I see why not."

"Did you ever know about anything regarding the Seal of Solomon being under possession with Bellincione and Bella per chance?"

"No. I thought their servants knew about this, but looking at your expression its clear that isn't the case. By the way Rudiger may I ask a question as well?"

"Sure go a head Mephisto."

"What exactly were your intentions when you allowed your ward to take Bernadette as his queen? Were you actually trying to assist his quest for vengeance or were you trying to distract him?"

"Distract wouldn't the right word I would describe it, but yes. I didn't want Dante to become so indulged with path of vengeance that he no longer become the person he use to be and become some dark avenger who would do anything to get his revenge."

"I see... That's what I thought. If you had confessed the prior, I would have automatically reported this the current Satan Faction and have you arrested for doing something like this. And you're right. I know that boy of Bellincione and Bella is a good child and I have to admired his determination to avenge his parents, however, it's never good to let your personal feeling to get the best of you."

 ** _~DOTA~_**

 ** _~The Kingsmen~_**

When I received word that someone from the Great King's Faction wanted to see me, I never suspected to be you of all people. If you're here to speak with personally, this must very important indeed."

"You're Nercodsir. I'm here to speak with you personally regarding your Rating Game Match against the Extra Demon."

"Oh? Are you going to rigged the game more than it has to be? You of all people should know that the members of the house of Belial are more of capable handling our opponents on our own."

"Yes, I know this far too well; however, I'm here to talk about Extra Demon in general."

"What about him?"

"Whatever you do in that match, I want you to take him out, permanently."

"Oh? Why's that? Isn't enough to strip him of everything rather than killing him?"

"I see your point, but that Extra Demon isn't allow to live in any circumstances. Word has gone out to the other Extra Demon clans about the boy's parent's death by know and if his father's clan hears the existence of the boy, all hell might break loose."

"His father's clan? Is there something I should know regarding the relationship between the the Great King Faction and the Pruflas Clan?"

"No. It's not your concern at all! Just make sure he doesn't make it out alive."

"Oh ho? Though as much I want to fulfill your request, how am I able to preform just task if the system gets in my way? The moment the servant clan child get's as much close to critical injury, the system of the Rating Game activates and he's automatically retired and the leave the dimension we're battling in."

"Leave that to me. My men and I will tamper the field so you can execute the plan. If anybody asked, it was malfunction in the battlefield. Nothing more and nothing less."

"Oh? You sure the currently Beelzebub won't find this suspicious?"

"Just leave him to me Nercodsir. All that matters that the Extra Demon doesn't survive."

"Understood. The demand of the current head of the Bael household are absolute. After all, the head of the Bael household is the true ruler of underworld."

* * *

 **My god! This took me more longer than I hope. Originally I wanted to make the training of both Dante and Bernadette off screen, but I felt if I did that it would be consider lazy, in my opinion at least. Since so much has happen this chapter, I decided to focus on Bernadette and her POV since last chapter still focused on Dante rather than his relationship with Bernadette, which I hope I touched upon. If not, there is always next chapter. Also regarding the last two scenes of the chapter, you in the LN where if it doesn't focus on Issei or Kiba POV the entire scene is cover in dialogue completely. Well in this case, I did this because I'm kind in a rush.**

 **Originally I was going to pull up a profile page for Bernadette, but I had to put that on hold for now since I'm back in school, but when I get the time I'll go back up and post it with Cid, Dante's new knight and his new bishop and Eve as well. So for now here's the roster of Dante's current's peerage and new abilities:**

 **Peerage:**

 **Queen (Mutation): Bernadette**

 **Bishop:**

 **Bishop:**

 **Knight (Mutation): Cid Rodriguez (Trade)**

 **Knight:**

 **Rook:**

 **Rook:**

 **Pawn: Eve (Al-mir'aj Rabbit) (Value of 3)**

 **Pawn:**

 **Pawn:**

 **Pawn:**

 **Pawn:**

 **Pawn:**

 **Dante's newly acquired ability:**

 **Healing Factor: Though the fully extent of Dante's healing Factor is unknown, Dante was able to quickly recover from injuries like being lit on fire.**

 **Also speaking of Dante's peerage, Cid's appearance is similar to Naofumi Iwatani from Rise of the Shield Hero/** **Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari, which is a web novel I recommend you read.**

 **Now up to the next chapter of DOTA:**

 **The Rating Game match between Dante and the Kingsmen begins. With the stakes of lives on the line, Dante and his peerage must give everything they got and struggle to win. But as the match becomes more difficult for Dante and crew, something awakened in both Dante and Bernadette, which could the outcome of the match for the better or the worse.**

 **Next time in Devil of the Apocalypse: The Awakening Pt 01**

 **Bernadette: Free! I'm finally free!**


	6. 5 and half: Between the Dreams

**Chapter** _ **04.5: Dreams in Between**_

* * *

 **Sorry but this chapter isn't the Rating Game chapter, but an in between chapter between Life 04's Antebellum Chapter and the Chapter 05's Awakening Part 01. In the spirit of Halloween, which a supernatural holiday, I wanted to release a DxD chapter, but since neither the actually chapter of DOTA or Fragile were close to finishing, I decided published as a treat for all my Halloweener followers.**

* * *

It was the night before the Rating Match between Dante and the Kingsmen. So far the last week of training became heretic with the enlistment of Eve and Dante's newly acquired Bishop into his peerage, forcing him, Cid, and Sona to come up with new tactics and strategies for the new roster. The group cramped through individual and team work exercises till the last of day of training, where the group decided to take the day to rest themselves physically and go through the tactics and strategies for tomorrow's match. The team decided to bed early to get well rested for tomorrow's match.

Dante laid on top of his bed after he said good night to his peerage with Eve all cozy up on his lap. Dante took in one last sigh and gave one stroke to his pawn's back before closing his eyes and falling asleep. As the young king slept through the night, he woke up a familiar area. He was back in the wasteland where he once dream of months ago, but it entire area was covered a thick fog that was hard to see through.

 _"Ufufufu..."_ Dante heard the giggling voice of a young voice within the mist. He turned around to the direction of young girl's voice, but he heard giggling again coming from a different direction. _'Dante... Oh Dante... Has long has it been since we last we last saw one another."_ The young girl's voice sounded like she was familiar with Dante, but Dante himself never heard her voice before in his life.

Dante began to noticed a silhouette of a small petite girl emerging from the mist. He rushed over towards the silhouette and reached his hand towards it, but when he believed he caught to the silhouette, it disappeared before he could even lay a finger on her.

 _"You're going to need to better than that...'_ The girl laughed as her silhouette reappeared form behind.

"Tsk..." Dante clicked his tongue out of annoyance as he glared at the girl's silhouette. "What kind of game are you trying to pull here? Why don't you just come out from the mist and show yourself!"

 _"Game? Oh Dante. This isn't a simple game of tag. Oh no. This a matter of life of death."_

"Life or death?" Dante asked as he tried to catch up to the silhouette. But just like before, the moment Dante was centimeters away of touching her, she disappeared with the thick mist and reappeared on different side of the wasteland.

 _"Yes. Soon enough the world that you know it is going to be no more. Everything is go change and no one can do nothing about it if they like it or not."_

The thickness of fog began to turn lucid and Dante was to get a clear good look of the mysterious silhouette girl. The mysterious silhouette girl had age appearance of a late preadolescence child with a petite, pale skin complexion body. She had short fiery red hair and matching eyes, which both gave off a vibrant glow. She was dressed in Gothic black dress with fancy silver ornaments placed on her dressed. She beamed Dante an unflappable smile and a wink, which the latter cringed in response.

"And you're going to one who's going to begin this revolution." She said reassuringly.

"Me?" Dante asked, raising a brow in suspicion. "You're kidding right? What make you think I possess the power to do change the world?"

"You have point there." The mysterious redhead girl agreed. "Due to your current condition, you'll probably never achieve the power you desired to avenge your parents; however, that's no longer the case since we're partners after all."

"Partners?" Before Dante could even ask the strange redhead girl what she's talking about, the deep fog began to emerged. Dante rushed over towards before the fog could sheathed her away. "Wait! I still don't know what you're talking about!"

The mysterious red redhead girl let out a murky grin right before the fog consumed her. _"Ufufu... Don't worry your pretty little head, Partner~. Everything you need to know will come soon enough. The age of the Horsemen are finally here."_

"Horsemen?" Before Dante knew it, the entire wasteland soon became devoured within the thick white fog. And soon enough he was consumed by it himself.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

"Where am I?"

The last night Bernadette remembered was laying on top of her bed and staring at ceiling before closing her for a few seconds. The next thing she knew, she opened her eyes again to a dark, abandoned building. She laid down on the cold concrete floor with nothing more the pink nightgown she wore to bed.

"Hello? Is there anybody there?" Terrified, Bernadette slowly got up the ground and carefully strolled in the abandoned building warily till he noticed a light emitting through a door she noticed up head in a hallway she entered. Without thinking properly, Bernadette rushed toward the door in high hopes someone she knew was there. But as she opened the door and entered the room, that wasn't the case.

Inside the room she entered was nothing more than a single prisoner's bed with a single light bulb hanging up the ceiling, flickering on and off. Bernadette flinched as she heard the door from behind slammed itself closed and the lights completely went out.

"Kyaa!" The young Valkyrie let out a frightened shriek as everything around her went dark and then...

 _*Tick, Tock Tick Tock*_

The light went on back for good as a sound of a ticking grandfather clock was heard. Bernadette slowly turned to the side to see the familiar grandfather clock she use to have in her old cell. She turned back to the bed on the other side and quickly realized something: she's was back in her old cell.

 _"Ufufu."_ The lights quickly went out in Bernadette's old cell for a second time as an innocent laughter of young women echoed the throughout the cell. _"She's back! Our sister has finally come back!"_ The voice said out loud cheerfully.

 _"Is is true? Have our beloved sister return!?"_ A second voice said, surprised to hear of Bernadette's presence. _"This can't be! Why is she doing here?"_

 _"Maybe she's finally came to her senses."_ A third voice suggested, sounded delight to see Bernadette. _"You know how men are. They claimed they care for till they laid there eyes on a better prize."_

 _"Oh hush now! That isn't the case, is it?"_ A fourth voice intervened. _"Unlike her past self, this one hasn't became a victim of heartbreak."_

 _"Well it's only a matter of time before heart gets broken."_ A fifth voice sneered in a chilling, sadistic tone that send a chill down to Bernadette's spin. _"Face it kid. As soon you realize your man has already fallen for another, which we both know that already has happen, you're going to tossed to the curve like yesterday's trash like your past self was! And the moment that happen and you enter in a state of despair, we'll come. Oh we'll come and set everything straight. Not only toward your "beloved master" but to this damn world who deserted us to die! Ha, it's going to be terrific."_

 _"Spot it already! Can't you see you're scaring her!"_ A sixth voice said in a serious tone. _"And judging by her look on her face, it doesn't seem she recognized us."_

 _"..."_ Though Bernadette didn't hear anything, she could tell there was another presence within the dark room.

 _"Say it ain't so!"_ The fifth voice responded sarcastic tone. _"Of course this girl forgotten us. This girl abandoned us the moment that man walked into her life! But look who came crawling back to us now!"_

Bernadette began to tremble in fear as she heard footsteps coming from all directions. The lights went back on again and this time it only gave out enough light to shine a spotlight where Bernadette stood. And with that light, Bernadette clearly saw seven girls all surrounding her.

 _"Hey now. It's alright."_ The fifth voice said, menacingly. _"You're with family now."_ The light began to flicker, ready to die out for a third time as one of the seven girls around slowly approached her with a vile smile on her face. _"You're in a safe place. We'll protect you from that big bad man of yours. It is a sister's job to watch out for each other."_

Before the lights completely died out, the girl that approached Bernadette instantly placed her hands on her neck strangling. When the lights died out, not only Bernadette felt she was being strangled by the the girl that approached her, but she felt all of the girls around began to closed into her space and suffocating her from all directions.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

Bernadette opened her eyes to see the ceiling of her bedroom. Without even realizing it, her body was cover in sweat and she was out of breathe. It was like she experience a night terror far worse than any she experienced before. But for some reason she didn't screamed at all. She turned over the the digital clock on her nightstand and noticed the time. It has been only a few minutes that she went off to bed.

 _'W-What was that?'_ Bernadette wondered as she slowly raised her back off from her bed. She tried to think back to what she what she assumed she dreamed, but couldn't a remember a thing that happened. Deciding not to let this get the best of her, Bernadette sighed and laid back down on her bed. She took one last deep breathe before sleeping away for tonight.

* * *

 **Hello everybody! Gunmare here want to say Happy Halloween! Originally I was going to post the next chapter of DOTA with the Rating Game match, but due to writing "A Fragile Heart" which I recommend you read, and school work, plus a lot of revisions of the story itself, I decided to hold back on the story for a bit till I figured out what exactly I want for the next chapter, so I decided to leave a little "Foreshadow" of what's to come in the following chapter.**

 **So Happy Halloween and let's rejoice for the next following chapters that are about to come.**


	7. The Awakening Pt 01

_**Before I let you read this chapter, I have a quick announcement, I want to announce that my new DxD story Daredevil, which serve as this story's sequel, is published and you should go ahead and read it. The explanation of why I decided to work on the sequel on a story that I haven't finished. And also... **_

**_Merry Christmas to all and all a goodnight. And happy new years. By the time the new years day arrive, the next chapter of A Fragile Heart hopefully will be published. _**

* * *

_**Chapter 05: Awakening Pt 01**_

The Rating Game match between Dante's peerage and the Kingsmen was soon about to commence. Everyone in Dante's peerage and Rudiger all waited silently in the parlor room for the teleportation circle from Rating Games officials to show up.

Everyone in Dante's peerage were all dressed in proper battle outfit. For Dante, he wore an all black battle suit with black finger less gloves, long tailed black leathered jacket with anti magic defensive vest, black jeans with a black utility belt, and black combat boots while Bernadette dressed in Valkyrie armor, which consists of a white breastplate with gold and pale orange accents and matching, fingerless gauntlets, boots, and hip guard. She also wears a black leotard underneath her breastplate, black thigh-high stockings, and a pale blue mini skirt underneath her hip guard. Cid himself was dressed in light armor that made him looked like a barbarian with green and brown coloring while Eve had nothing but the a dog collar with spikes on.

After spending some time gazing at the father clock for sometime, Dante turned his direction towards the young girl sitting on the sofa across from him. She a young and shy elementary school girl with wavy, shoulder length silver hair and light, sparkling blue eyes. Her entire body was was covered in blue unitard with a fancy white and blue sleeveless robe that Egyptian symbols as its design. She also possessed white magician's hat with matching long sleeve gloves, that carried a fancy blue and white wand with a moon shaped crescent at the tip, and fancy blue boots.

Her name is Aisha Ishtar and she's the newest member of Dante's peerage. She's the bishop that Dante traded for his free bishop piece to Mephisto Pheles.

 _ **~Flashback~  
**_

 _Dante, Bernadette, and Eve returning to the castle after receiving word from Rudiger regarding the news of Mephisto offering to trade his bishop into Dante's peerage in exchange for a free piece. The trio arrived in the parlor where Cid and Rudiger were already waiting. A magic circle appeared in the center of the parlor room with holographic imagined appeared from within the magic circle. The hologram within the magic circle projected_ _a middle-aged man with gelled red and blue hair and heterochromic red and blue eyes sitting behind a large desk. Dante easily recognized this man to be Mephisto Pheles._

 _"Oh hello Prince Dante." Mephisto Pheles greeted Dante in a light tone before turning his attention towards Bernadette. "Oh? Who's this cute girl next to you? Is she perhaps your queen? "_

 _Everyone in the room knew very well that Mephisto was acting witless. He of all people knew very well who exactly Bernadette was and knew precisely that she taken out from her cell behind his back._

 _"Yes." Dante said as he did a quick bow towards the chairman of the_ _Grauzauberer. "Her name is Bernadette and I recruited her a couple months ago."_

 _"That's good to know." Mephisto nodded with a pleased smile on his face. "Judging how this girl looks, I can tell you taken great care of her."_

 _"Thank you." Dante cleared his throat and adverted his eyes away from Mephisto's. It was clear now that Mephisto doesn't have any problem of Bernadette being in Dante's peerage. "So what brings the great Mephisto Pheles to my humble adobe?"_

 _"A little birdy told me that you'll be competing in a unfavorable Rating Game match between the children of the Great King Faction. So I decided to give you my support." Mephisto answered._

 _"Is that so." Dante swallowed his saliva down his throat as he turned eyes back to Mephisto._ _"And you're showing this support by trading me one of your servants?"_

 _"That's right." Mephisto nodded as he leaned back on his chair. "_ _You've all been informed by this a head of time right? So tell me Dante, are you interested in trading one of Bishop pieces for one of mine?"_

 _"Well..." Dante wasn't sure what kind of servants this other Extra Demon possessed in his peerage. So far the only servant of Mephisto he knew of was his queen, Tannin, the former Dragon King that was known as Blaze Meteor Dragon, who been stated to have strength of a Satan of terms of power. If he was able to reincarnate a mighty creature like Tannin, who knows what kind of beneficial servants Mephisto possessed. "... It's not that I want to trade pieces with you, but I want to know what kind of servant you are going to trade with me?"_

 _Everyone knew very well that the servant that Mephisto was going to trade to Dante was going to keep an eye on Bernadette at all cost. If he was going to claimed one of Mephisto's servant, he needed to at least know what kind of person Mephisto's servant is and is someone who can cooperate with rest of the peerage in the Rating Game._

 _"Oh? You want to make sure you're getting your Evil Piece worth or do you just want to know the type of person I'll be trading with you?" Mephisto asked._

 _"You can say its bit of both." Dante answered. "I want to know if I'm able to cooperate with this servant of yours."_

 _"That's understandable." Mephisto nodded in agreement and snapped his fingers. Another magic circle appeared next to the one that was showing Mephisto's hologram. An imagine of Mephisto's bishop appeared in the size of small figurine. "Her name is Aisha Ishtar. She's one my of my best and brightest pupil within the Grauzauberer. Not only she was best within her rank, but she gets along with everybody regardless of their race._ _"_

 _"Is that so?" Dante put his hand underneath his chin as he put more thought into Mephisto's servant. She wasn't the type of person Dante was suspecting to be as Mephisto's bishop. "Tell me Lord Mephisto. What kind skills and talent does Aisha possessed."_

 _"Well if categorized Aisha's talent in terms of the Rating Game, she would be categorized as a wizardry type fighter. For a girl her age, knows a set of skills of a sort of magic from Bl_ _ack magic to White magic to Norse magic to Fairy magic to even teleportation circles_ _." Mephisto explained contentedly about his bishop . "But that isn't the best part. You can have this fun size package for the price of one Bishop. So what do you say?"_

 _Dante bit his lower lip. He wasn't sure either or not accept this offer. It wasn't that he didn't believed Mephisto's word, but he suspected more in Mephisto's Bishop. He couldn't believe Mephisto is allowing this girl at such a young age to have an job to keep an eye on Bernadette. He imagined someone a little older with more confidence. Dante closed his eyes, giving Mephisto's offer into more thought._

 _Dante sighed and created a magic circle on his palm. A bishop piece emerged from the magic circle and Dante began to twirled it between his fingers. "Alright Mephisto. I'll accept your offer."_

 _"You're doing the right thing. I promise you that you'll happy with this decision." Mephisto said as a new and larger magic circle appeared. "Just put your piece on the magic circle."_

 _Dante walked up to the magic circle and placed the free bishop piece on the center. He backed away as the light of the magic circle brightened up and the bishop piece began to glow before evaporating into thing air. Everyone shield their eyes as a pillar of light emerged from the magic circle till the light began to fade to see a young silver haired girl dressed in a white and blue magician's outfit. The moment she and Dante made eye contact another, she quickly adverted her eyes away from him as her face slightly reddened._

 _"Congratulation Dante. I hope you and your peerage get along with Aisha. Best of luck in your match against the Great King Faction." With that said, Mephisto hologram disappeared and the magic circles faded away from the floor, leaving Dante, his peerage, and Rudiger with a young girl who know is going to get involve with their shenanigans._

 ** _~DOTA~_**

"IS something wrong my king?" Dante snapped out from his thoughts as he heard a soft voice of a young, innocent girl. Dante turned to his bishop, who wiggled her bold as she tightened her grip on her wand. It was clear from her tone and her body movement that she was feeling anxious. Was it because of the game or was Dante was staring at her for so long?

"No... It's nothing. Nothing at all." Dante denied as he waved his hand off.

Dante adverted his eyes away from his bishop as one of the butlers entered the parlor. "Pardoned me my lord." The butler made a quick bow in front of everybody before turning his attention to Dante. "I know that my timing here is a bit inappropriate, but there is a last minute visitor who wished to speak with you, Prince Dante."

"With me?" Dante asked, raising his brow in suspicion. It couldn't be Sairaorg or the girls. None of them could have stayed and watched the match here in Rudiger's castle due to personal reasons. Recently Sairaorg was given orders from the Great King Faction to stay away from Dante on the day of the match since they have a grudge on Dante while both girls were ordered both their older siblings and their family to stop visiting Dante.

Apparently when word got out of the Dante's match, the Four Satan Faction began to question the motivates of the Great King Faction, which the latter retaliated back at prior ruthlessly for opposing their authority. It wasn't till recently that the families of the Four Great Satan Faction figured out that Rias and Sona were helping Dante and made them stop immediately. Dante wouldn't blame them. It hard as it for the Great Satan Faction to maintain a descent relationship with the Great King Faction. If they found out the relatives of the Satans were aiding their target, the relationship between the two political parties might become more tarnished than ever before.

"Who is it?"

"It's Ravel Phenex. The daughter of the current lord of the Phenex Household." The butler confessed, much to everyone's surprise.

Dante turned his head towards Rudiger, who also seemed shock. Neither one of them suspected Ravel to show up the blue, especially at this time.

"Prince Dante, do you want to speak with Princess Phenex or should I tell her to come another time?" The butler asked.

"No no. It would be rude if we sent her away, especially since she took her time coming here." Dante said as got off his seat. He accompanied the butler out of the parlor room and followed him into the entrance hall, where the duo saw a familiar blonde hair girl with drill like twin tails dressed in a fancy a long, pink dress with white frills and a magenta bow in the front. The young girl was accompanied herself with a butler of her own.

"Ah! I-It's you!" The young Phenex girl's body tense up as she tried out get her composure together. "I-I mean... Hello. Greeting Prince Dante. It's a pleasure to finally speak with you." She grabbed on to her dress and did a quick curtsy.

"The pleasure is all mine, Ms Phenex." Dante complimented as he did a quick bow to her. "So what brings the prestigious daughter of the Phenex household here? Shouldn't you be at home, watching my demise at the hands of the Kingsmen?"

"Eh? Who me? W-Well sure. I-I'm planning to watch the match back home with my family, b-but I want to speak with before your match begins." Ravel confessed with a red face.

"Oh? About what?"

"W-Well..." Ravel began to twiddle finger around as she tried to mustered the words she wanted to say. "You know I haven't properly thanked you for saving me that time."

 _'Saved her?'_ He remembered the Al-mi'raj incident back those months ago. He cheeks turned slightly red as he reminisced of the incident. He remembered being the only one willing enough to go down and confront the Al-mi'raj, who was about to assault Ravel Phenex. After the incident, rumors spread out throughout the underworld on Dante courageous confronted the Al-mi'raj to save Ravel, but truth be told, Dante only confronted the Al-mi'raj because he wanted return Eve back to her parent, not to save Ravel.

"Ah yes. But isn't a bit late to give me your gratitude for something that happened months ago?" Dante asked.

"I-I... T-The thing is..." Ravel stuttered as she couldn't figured out to what to say. Before she could blabber on, Dante put his hand up to gesture her to stop.

"It's fine." Dante assured. "But wouldn't you rather be speaking with Nercosdir. Technically he was the one who slayed the beast that dared to harm you."

"That's true." Ravel concurred, getting her composure back together. "However, you're were the one who was brave enough to confront the beast out of everyone in the class."

Dante felt his body tensing up from Ravel's words. It wasn't he felt touched by the her gentle words, but it was for the fact that he never had any actually intentions of saving her. All he wanted to do was return Eve back to its parent, but that never happened since the Al-mi'raj also took a swing at him and got killed by Nercodsir.

"A-Ah! Prince Dante! Did I offend you in anyway?" Ravel asked, now noticing her savior looking stiff.

"No. It's nothing." Dante denied as he cleared his throat. "Well it's best to get heading home soon. The match between me and the Kingsmen are going to commence soon enough. It was real pleasure speaking to you."

"W-Wait!" As Dante turned around, ready to head back to the parlor room, he stopped and turned back around back to Ravel, who had a magic circle on her hand and something small materialized from it. "Here!" She quickly place the small item into her hand as she shyly adverted her eyes. "C-Consider this as payment for saving me."

"Payment?" Dante observed the time placed on his hand. What he held was a small black box with golden design and had a bow wrapped around it. Before Dante could unwrapped it, he heard footsteps coming from behind and turned around to Rudiger with an apologetic look on his face.

"Sorry to interrupt, but the teleportation circle for the match has appeared." Rudiger informed. "It's to wrap things up and be our way."

"Understood." Dante nodded at his guardian before looking at the young Phenex girl. "Forgive me, but it seems that time isn't on our side."

"N-No. I understand. It's my fault for not reaching to you sooner." Ravel said with a weak smile.

"Don't be." Dante said. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't say anything at all. After all, I'm a pure-blood born with low amount of demonic energy and an Extra Demon that has nothing to offer to the devil society. It would hurt you and your family's reputation if word out got of this meeting."

"Don't say that!" Ravel argued defensively. "I-It might be true that you have your faults, but at least you make up for it with integrity and honor. I can easily tell that you're not like the rest of other pure-bloods out there. It doesn't matter what other people say about you, you're hundred times better than those hags that walk about you behind your back!"

Dante looked at Ravel with baffled widen eyes. He couldn't believe what she just said to him. He let out a small chuckle as his eyes became filled with warmth and admiration. "Thank you for your generous words. I really appreciate what you said."

"A-Ah. You're welcome!" Ravel's face redden even more after being complimented by Dante. "I-I really should be going now. Best of luck in your match against Nercodsir and his gang. I-I'll be rooting you back home."

With that said, Ravel did another curtsy in front of Dante before heading back to her home with her butler via magic circle.

 _ **~DOTA~**_

Dante and Rudiger walked back to the parlor, where all of Dante's peerage stood on the teleportation circle placed in the center of the room.

"So. The time has finally come." Dante sighed as he scratched the back of his head. "Any last words before I go in?"

Rudiger made a calmed smile across his face as he put his hand on Dante's shoulder. "Yeah. Give all you got out there and don't get discourage out there. Everyone here is rooting for you and your peerage. Show everyone out there that you're truly are the son of Bellincione Pruflas and Bella Leonard!"

Dante nodded as a single tear went his cheek. An imagine of his parents came into his mind right before he walked over towards his peerage and the teleportation circle. He stood next in between Bernadette and Aisha. He reached his hand out towards Bernadette's and grasped it. Bernadette noticed this and turned to her king confused. Dante looked backed at her and smiled.

"Let's do our best." He said as he gently squeezed her hand.

"Yes." Bernadette shone a bright smile back at her king as she and everyone in the magic circle are enveloped by the light of the teleportation circle and teleported off to the Rating Game match.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

Dante and his peerage arrived to an area where the ground is covered in sand, the sound of waves crashing down on the shores, and the entire surrounding covers in field of tropical trees.

"An island? They dropped us on a tropical island?" Cid asked as he and everyone walked up to the shore. "This can't be right. Those bastards from the Rating Game council told us that we're participating in the city of ancient Rome. Why the hell they're trying to pull?"

"They probably want to see if how could we respond to the situation." Dante said as he looked around the entire perimeter. "It's that or they're screwing us. Either way the plans we initially had are probably no longer valid depending what other news the council is going to give us."

[Attention all participants of tonight's Rating Game match.] Everyone stood still for moment before turning their heads up to the artificial white sky.[My name is Seekvaira Agares, heiress of the Agares clan.]

 _'Seekvaira?'_ Dante recognized the announcer. She's one of Dante's classmates who didn't interact with none of the other students and was short tempered and sharp tongued. _'Don't tell me she of all people is going to be arbiter of the match?'_

[I will be carrying the role of arbiter in the "Rating Game" between the Dante Pruflas and the school's top student Nercodsir Belial, and his allies Wazir Purson, Inferus Beleth, and Berolina Paimon.] Dante cringed as he heard the rest of the announcement. According to Sairaorg, Seekvaira has something against Extra Demons for some reason, but Dante shrugged it off. It always seemed that Seekvaira had something against everyone for some reason. If what Sairaorg said true, she could take advantage of the situation and help in the Kingsmen's favor in this match.

[I and faculty members of the Rating school will watch over the battle between these competitors. It's a pleasure to be here. To get right to the main topic, the battlefield for today is located in five deserted islands, where the groups are each located on one of each island. Soon after this announcement is over, documents will have been spent to each group with maps of their certain location. A single bottle of the healing item "Phoenix Tears" has been provided to each team. Furthermore, the time to strategise before the battle is a hundred and twenty minutes. Contact with the opponent during this time is forbidden. The game is scheduled to start after the hundred and twenty minutes are up. Then, let the strategy time begin.]

A magic circle appeared next Dante and an large stuffed paper envelope was materialized from it. Dante picked up and unopened to see the documents Seekvaira was talking about, a map of the five islands, and the small bottle of Phenex Tears for their team.

"Alright. Let's where we're located in." Cid picked up the map as Dante evaluated the documents. The black hair knight left eye twitched as he crumpled the map in his hands and threw it on the ground. "Shit. Unbelievable. These bastards left us sticking ducks."

"Let me see." Dante picked up the crumpled map and examined it. "Crap. Cid is right. The island we're on is the center island, which is cornered in by other four islands. Our enemies can come in from all angles."

And this was only the beginning of their problems. With the information Dante received from the documents, the only way for his pawn to promote is by stepping on all of the other islands that under the jurisdiction of his opponents. However in vice versa, if any of his opponent's pawns laid foot on his island, it would be game over for him and his team for sure.

"So what's the best option?" Bernadette asked. "Staying here is just suicidal. We can't build enough traps throughout the entire island and hope for the enemy to step of them."

"The best course of action will be heading off to another island." Dante suggested. "We have no choice to take the initiative and attack one of the Kingsmen."

"But which one though?" Cid brought up. "The map doesn't say where each Kingsmen is located in and if we end up in the wrong island on the wrong time, we could be royally screwed."

Cid was right. None of the documents or the map revealed anything about the locations of the Kingsmen. And there also the fact that Seekvaira hadn't announced any rule of "allies" communicating with one another. It wouldn't be surprised if they discovered this loophole and have already has made contact with one another.

"We have no choice but take chance on one of the islands." Dante said after some evaluating the situation on hand. He crouched down next to his pawn and scratched the back of her ear, which she happily thumped her leg in delight. "Eve is our ace in the hole. The moment she promote into queen, we have a higher chance of winning."

"S-So which one are w-we going?" Aisha stuttered.

"Let me see." Dante looked down at the map. "According to map, the closest island near us is the southern island. But before we go, we need to step up traps for any of the pawns that might show up here."

"Oh leave that to me." Aisha volunteered with her hand up eagerly. "I can set up just enough booby traps in the throughout the island before the match begins."

"You sure? You don't want me to help out?" Bernadette asked.

Aisha flinched from Bernadette's offer as she made a nervous grin. "No thank you. It's fine Ms. Bernadette. I can handle this on my own. _"_

"Eh?" Bernadette took a step, becoming completely stupefied. She collapsed on her knees with a weak, sad smile and lifeless smile. "Am I no good to set up traps with you Aisha? Well I am nothing more than a ticking time tomb. If I don't concentrate properly or use the right equation, I might end up activate the Rating Game system before the game could even begin."

"Ah! Ms. Bernadette. Please don't say that! It just that..." Dante and Cid rolled their eyes as Aisha frantically tried to give a reasonable explanation to why she doesn't want any help from the sensitive Valkyrie, but before she could finish an another announcement appeared with grave news.

[Ahem! Attention participants of tonight's match. There has been a sudden change of rules and now the time limit for planning has been revoke and the match has officially begin!] Seekvaira revealed, much to everyone's shock.

"Wait what?" Before Dante could even say anything, he turned to the coast. He and everyone detected something foreboding coming far distance heading their way. Both the black hair king and knight rushed over towards the girls as a barrage of demon energy was fired down on them from above.

 ** _~DOTA~_**

"Game. Set. Match." Soaring above the coast of the central island with his peerage by his side, Wazir Purson sneered. The moment Seekvaira announced revocation for the time to strategize, he and his peerage went for the kill. They flew towards the island as fast as they and go all out before Dante and his peerage could even take any action. The entire coast is cover in deep black smoke from Wazir and his peerage's assail.

"Lord Purson, something is wrong." His queen informed him. "Even though we went all our in our attack, there hasn't been a single announcement of our foe's retirement."

It's true. Whenever a devil is in a critical condition, the system of the game would automatically "retire" them and teleport them away to medical faculty to recover. However today its not the case for this match. Nercodsir has informed Wazir and the rest of the Kingsmen about the hit on Dante from the current lord of the Bael Clan. According to Nercodsir, the Great King Faction will rigged the environment so they can kill Dante for once and for all.

"Hmm... You're right." Wazir lied with a straight face. "They should have retired the second our lethal attack closed in. Maybe the system must have been bug...ged?"

Wazir trailed off as the smoke began to clear up. The entire coast was deserted with not a single living being in sight, but there was a large dome created from magical steel metal chains. The chains began to glow a faint white light before bursting into tiny sharps of light and fading into thin air. Wazir and his peerage gasped as they noticed a group of individuals that appeared out of the dissolved dome of chains.

"No way... How the hell..." Wazir's eyes widened, realizing that Dante and his peerage came out unharmed. "How the hell did they survive!?"

 ** _~DOTA~_**

 ** _~A few moments ago~_**

"Bernadette! Aisha!" Both Dante and Cid rushed over towards the girls before the sky coast was bombarded with blast of demonic energy. Dante dove down towards the girls and wrapped his arms around them and brought them close to his chest. "Cid! Do it now!"

"Got it!" Cid quickly got on front of Dante and raised his right hand up in the air. "Come forth! Sacred Gear!" A small white light gathered on Cid's right forearm and a white medieval shield with a small green gem on its center materialized. "Bring forth! Shield Prison!"

Massive amounts of chain emerged out and began to construct itself into a large dome. Eve quickly dashed inside the dome in a nick of time before it finished constructing itself. Everyone in Dante's peerage remained perfectly still as sound of explosion can be heard outside the dome. All of the girls huddled close to Dante as the black hair prince stared back at Cid, who stood perfectly his right arm perfectly still. Dante closed his eyes and thought back to the day he obtained custody to Cid's estate.

 ** _~Flashback~_**

 _"Have you ever heard of "Sacred Gears" before?"_

 _It was sometime after leaving the Trading Center. Dante, Bernadette, and Rudiger returned back to their castle with Cid, who's now became Dante's knight. After having a good hot meal and a change of clothing, Dante, Berndette, and Rudiger were all gathered at the garden, where the stood in front of Cid, who demonstrated his shield to everyone._

 _"Sacred Gears?" Both Dante and Rudiger were familiar with these Sacred Gears. They were known as God's artifacts. They were items with powerful abilities_ _bestowed upon humans and human descent by the original God from the Bible. Many high class devils have keen interest in Sacred Gears and pursuit humans with these Sacred Gears to be part of their personal peerage. Was that the reason Cid was worth a mutation piece? Did his Sacred Gear had something to do with it?_

 _"So what exactly is the name of your Sacred Gear and what does it do." Rudiger asked as he looked down at Cid's shield._

 _"It's name is Shield Defender, also known as the Inauguration of the Holy Shield. As the both name suggest, my Sacred Gear is categorized as both holy attribute and defense based weapon." Cid explained. "However..."_

 _A white light began to gather around Cid's shield and its shape began to morph into a different shape. The white light faded off from Cid's shield and a completely new shield appeared from it. The shape of the body took more of shape of cross and its color turned emerald green. The green cross shaped shield was decorated with yellow flower symbols placed in the centered of the shield with two golden snake ornaments position next to each other to form the infinite symbol._

 _"...The true power of this Sacred Gear grants me the ability to create any type of shield I desire." Cid revealed to his delight as everyone in front of him become awestruck. "Though these Sacred Gear of mine is amazing and all, I unfortunately have to confess that there are conditions and flaws to my Sacred Gear. First off, I can only create shields with holy attribute. Secondly these shields aren't as impeccable as they appeared. Depending the type of pressure my shield encounter, it can easily be break as glass. Also despite being a creation type of Sacred Gear, I can only manage to form one to two shield at time. Plus this shield lacks any offensive power and acts sort as a counter type, depending on the type of shield I make."_

 _"Okay anything else?" Dante asked. "Do I need to know any faults that comes with your Sacred Gear or any of your shortcomings?"_

 _"Well..." Cid let out an uncomfortable cough as he scratched the back of his head. "...You know how I wasn't Flavuur's favorite piece right? Well there was a reason for it."_

 _"Oh? What's that?" Rudiger asked._

 _"Well... I actually lack the qualities to be an actually knight." Cid confessed with a loud cough. "Truth be told, Flavuur found me by accident after nearly going through nearly life or death experience that wasn't as grave as I thought it will be."_

 _"Is that so..." Dante said, evaluating on Cid's expression. It doesn't seem Cid was lying..._

 ** _~Flashback Over~_**

However, it doesn't seem the case to be. As of right now, Cid appeared to completely composed and doesn't have a set of mind of an inexperience soldier. Rather, due to his calm composure it appeared that Cid looked he was accustomed to this kind of things. Due to his own lack of experience in actually fights, Dante can't call him out on it or have the chance to actually do so due to the situation. All he can do is stare at Cid and wondered if he's more than meets the eye.

"What? Do I have something a cross my face?" Cid asked after realizing his king was staring at him.

"No. It's just that I'm curious if your shield can hold on against this level of bombardment." Dante lied.

"Uh-huh..." Cid rolled his eyes, doubting his king's word. "It will hold. The training we had would be for nothing if it my Shield Prison didn't withhold this kind of pressure."

Dante believed him. Rudiger personally trained Cid into improving his Sacred Gear's defense. It would take high class devil or even ultimate class devil from the top ten ranked Rating Game champion to destroy his shields.

After the conversation between the two ended, everything became silent from inside and out of the dome. Everyone immediately realized that their opponent has ended their assault. Dante let go of the girls and all three of them stood back up.

"Alright everyone! The time has finally come! It's now or never!" Everyone within the dome nodded their heads to Dante's declaration. Dante turned to Cid, who nodded his head again as he realized on what Dante was going to say next. He take down his Shield Prison absorbing all the chains he released back to the shield.

With the dome gone, Dante looked up in the sky and saw horde of ten devils up in the sky. There was one in particular he was familiar with. The one he recognize was a young man slightly order than him with short, slicked purple hair and magnificent golden eyes. He wore a formal suit with light purple dress shirt, a black blazer on top of it, matching black dressed pants, and black shoes with socks that matched his shirt. Dante knew him as Wazir Purson.

Judging from his look, Dante could tell his opponent was clearly stupefied due to the fact he and his peerage made it in one piece. He face then turned red as rage began to build within him.

"What the hell are you guys waiting for! Finish him off already!" Wazir screamed. He pointed his finger at Dante and two of his servants dressed as medieval knights dove straight down towards Dante and his peerage in high velocity.

"Oh no you don't!" Bernadette raised her hands up and created a magic circle on the palm of her hands. She fired a large fireball directly at incoming knights.

"You think that's going to stop us!?" Both knights easily evaded the fireball and disappeared from sight.

 _'Crap! They're knights!'_ Bernadette realized as she quickly detected their presence nearby.

"Peek a boo! We see you!" Bernadette quickly turned to her to the side where she noticed one of the knights appeared with the tip of his sword pointing directly straight at Bernadette's neck and sensed the presence of the other on other side.

 _'No! I won't go down like this!'_ The two kights became off guarded as Bernadette's body began to flare up a fiery orange aura. The temperature began to boil up as the tips of their swords slowly began to melt away.

"What the hell!?" One of the knights exclaimed. He and the other knight became appalled as the rest of blade melts away to the ground. They became petrified in fear while Bernadette's fiery orange aura began to thicken and spread.

"Now burn into oblivion!" Bernadette cried out. Her aura ignited into a fiery explosion and the two knights near her were caught in the explosion.

[Two of Lord Wazir's knights have retired.] Seekvaira announced.

The shore became submerged in deep thick black smoke from explosion. Wazir and the rest of the peerage dove down into the shore and both his queen and his two bishops created magic circles on their hands, ready to blow away the smoke away with some wind magic. But before they can have a chance to preform their spell,a huge fiery red shards of demonic energy were fired from the smoke.

"What the?" Wazir's queen leaped back up in the air while the two bishops became impaled from the shards all over their body. Moments later, the shards began to exploded and the two bishops' body began to fade into a blue light and teleported off the island.

[Two of Lord Wazir's bishop have retired.]

"Guah!" Wazir heard the cry of one of his servants from the distance.

[One of Lord Wazir's pawn have retired.]

"Watch out! Something coming out from the ground!" One of Wazir's servant exclaimed. "Ah! Here it comes! Gauh!"

[One of Lord Wazir's Rooks have retired.]

 _'This can't be happening. This can't be happening.'_ Wazir shuddered as he continued to her the cries of the servants being taken out one by one. The smoke so thick, it hard to see what's going on. Whenever he or his queen tire to blow the smoke away, there quickly stopped by either those demonic powered shards that took out his bishops or one of Dante's servant. Soon enough all that remain of his peerage was only him and his queen. The two stood back to back as the smoke has finally cleared up.

The pure blood from the house of Purson and his queen were surrounded by Dante, Bernadette, Cid, and Aisha. Wazir widened his eyes as he looked at the pair of wings that emerged from his back. They weren't the typical bat wings most devils were born with. Rather they were created from shards that were dyed fiery red. The shape the wings looked rather angelic rather devilish. With those kind of wings, Dante could easily possess as an angel, though if the size of the wings were bigger that is.

"Those wings... They're created by your demonic energy!" Wazir realized. "So you're the the one who been firing those shards at us!"

"That's right." Dante nodded as his crystal wings dematerialize into flow of demonic energy. "There was no way me and my peerage couldn't defeat you or your peerage out of the open, so the solution was to take you take in the shadows."

"Not bad." Wazir admitted. "I didn't suspect you and your peerage to pull it off, especially having pathetic excuse of a knight like Cid."

Cid's brow twitched in annoyance.

"Yeah will would you believe me if I told that Cid was one who took out some of your servants out." Dante said.

Wazir burst out laughing. "You're joking right? There no way Cid could have taken out some of my servants. He's the worst knight a king could ever have."

"Oh is that a challenge?" Dante and the others turned towards to Cid, who got himself into fighting stance with his shield.

"I repeat: You're joking right?"Wazir stopped laughing and sounded more serious. The look in his eyes became sharp and intimidating. His entire body began to developed dark purple aura. "Because if you think you can-"

Before Wazir could even finished his sentence, Cid disappeared on sight. Wazir quickly picked up Cid's presence and turned around to his queen, who enveloped into a familiar blue aura. She faded away right before Cid appeared swinging his shield at the empty space where Wazir's queen once stood.

[Wazir's queen has retired]

"W-What... the..." Wazir gaped, shock to see Cid take out his queen without even laying a finger on her. He looked down at Cid's shield and gasped at its shape. "N-No way... That shield... I-It's a... a..."

"Cross?" Cid smirked as he raised his shield. The shield Cid held was large, fancy red and golden shield with large golden cross placed in the center. The cross itself shined brilliantly and emitted holy aura simultaneously. "Surprise? You should be."

"H-How...? It should be impossible! Your sacred gear was only meant to be a defensive type!" Wazir exclaimed.

"That's what we thought too." Dante admitted. "However, since Cid's Sacred Gear is also a "creation type", we decided test the limit of the shield and found that shields with cross symbols are just as lethal as wielding a holy sword."

"No... Way..." Dante could see the lost of hope in Wazir's eyes. Then eyes of despair turned into panic. He realized he was completely cornered. He spread his bat wings out, ready to fly off. He was about to take off, but one of his legs began to sunk in the sand. "W-What the?"

He tried to pull his leg off the sand, but he felt a sharp pain on his calf and got dragged further into the ground.

 _'Wait a minute...'_ He looked around and counted the number of people around him. _'Four! That can't be right! Shouldn't there be a fifth one?'_

Then it hit him. His entire body became submerged under the sand and he struggled to get out.

 _'No... Way...'_ His entire body quickly submerge under the sand. He struggled to get out, but his body enveloped in a blue aura, signaling his retirement.

[King Wazir has retired.] Seekvaira announced as Wazir teleported out of the field.

Dante walked up to the hole that sunk Wazir and crouched down. "You can come out Eve."

On command, a familiar white bunny rabbit emerged from the hole that swallowed Wazir. Dante smirked as he stroke the back of his only pawn.

"You did a job Eve. You've made me very proud." The young Al-mir'aj rabbit began to thump her right leg excitedly from hearing her master's praises. Bernadette saw this and her eyebrow twitched in annoyance. When Eve saw Bernadette's brow twitching, she stuck her tongue out that the young queen.

 _'Why that little...'_ Bernadette buffed her checks as steam came out her ears. She clutched her hands into fist as her face boiled red. She walked up to her king and cleared her throat. "Sorry to disturb you between you and your pet rabbit, but shouldn't we be leaving the island before any of the others show up?"

"She's right." Cid butted in. "Now that we've taken care of one of their own, the Kingsmen are sure to step up their game. It's best to go to one of their islands while we have the chance."

"Right." Dante nodded in agreement. "But what about the Kingsmen's pawn. If we leave this island unsecured, the Kingsmen will have the upper hand if we allow their pawns promote to queens on the island."

"Leave that me." Aisha volunteered. "You guys on go right ahead."

"You sure?" Dante asked.

"Yes." Aisha nodded. "You don't need to worry. I can handle this."

Dante stared into Aisha's light blue eyes. He can see the determination and conference those beautiful blue orbs. Seeing that time wasn't on their side, Dante let out a sigh and patted the silver haired magician's head. "Alright. I'll leave the intruders to you. Just promise me you'll be alright on your own."

"I promise." Aisha assured him. "Now go! The sooner we get Eve promote to a queen, the better."

"Got it." Dante smiled as he summoned his small fiery angelic wings. "Let's go everybody! Wazir's island is waiting for us."

 ** _~DOTA~_**

 ** _~Kingsmen~_**

"Wazir has already been eliminated."

"That idiot. Well that's what he get for going on his own. I always have seen him and Flavuur being the weakest leak of our group."

"Ha! So true. So true. We're better off without him."

"Silence you buffoons! This isn't the time to be laughing behind our comrade's defeat."

"Why so tense Nercodsir? We still out weight Pruflas three to one. So what if he took out Wazir. He just got lucky."

"He was lucky because Flavuur lowered his guard. Dante might not have a chance to defeat head on, but his servants is a different thing."

"Really? Doesn't he have Flavuur's useless knight?"

"He does, but don't forget. He still has other servants. Remembered the Al-mir'aj inccident back in the school field trip? Apparently Dante's familiar was the offspring of the beast that attacked the class and reincarnate into a servant. Plus there also the fact that he also has bishop we have no idea what skills she possess and a queen that required a mutation piece."

"So what about it? This is Pruflas we're talking about. He couldn't reincarnate a piece of crap with a regular piece anyways."

"You should really watch what you say Infernus. Talk like that probably caused Wazir to be eliminated so early."

"Chill Nercodsir. We still got this! We still have the numbers on our side. There no way Pruflas can take us out."

"You better be right Berolina. Failure isn't an option, especially if its a direct order from the leader of the Great King Faction himself."

* * *

 **Hello everyone and merry Christmas. Sorry it took so long, but I was occupied with finals in my third semester of community college and was working on holiday season in my part time job, but now since both things are over and work on DOTA, A Fragile Heart, and my newly published DxD story, Daredevil , which acts as the sequel of Devil of the Apocalypse. **

**You must be wondering on why I'm writing a sequel of the story which isn't complete. Well I have two reasons. 1) Time consumption. While I was writing this chapter, I found out that this rating game match had to be divided into three to four chapters and the way I'm going, I can't catch up the canon any time soon. So I decided to write Daredevil as the main story while Devil of the Apocalypse serve as its prequel. 2) I'm actually going to start a revising all of the current chapters of the stories after I complete the first arc of the story. I know that I don't have the perfect grammar, so I decided to fix some of the chapters by adding more scenes, retcon some things, and maybe even add new chapters (which just focus on Dante's relationship with the canon cast in general.) **

**Now time for the preview of part 2 of the Awakening:**

 **Dante and the others have gone to Wazir's island to rendezvoused and figure out a new plan to take out the rest of the Kingsmen, but with their spell caster staying to to hold off the intruding pawns, the path of victory become scarce as he and his peerage face off against the rest of their Kingsmen and their peerage. And what's worse is that something is eating Bernadette on the inside as her powers began to act up during the battle.**

 **Next time in Devil of the Apocalypse: The Awakening Part 02**

 **Nercodsir: It doesn't matter if you possess the least amount of demonic energy or the even the most. As long I know how your power works, I can cancel it away into nothingness.**


End file.
